


Luna Who?

by AmityRavenclawElf



Category: Doctor Who, Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Child Tom Riddle, Light Angst, Manipulative Tom Riddle, Multiple Doctors (Doctor Who), Non-Consensual Kissing, Possessive Tom Riddle, Teenage Tom Riddle, Timey-Wimey, Underage Kissing
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-12-06
Updated: 2018-08-06
Packaged: 2019-02-11 11:05:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 28
Words: 41,034
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12933915
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AmityRavenclawElf/pseuds/AmityRavenclawElf
Summary: Luna Lovegood was nine years old when she first met the Doctor. Him being himself and her being herself, they got along quite well. From there, it's all good fun...in time and space. (For the main storyline, skip from Chapter 2 to Chapter 9. In between those is still canon to this fan fiction but not essential or particularly well-done IMO.)Warning: Tom Riddle is creepy and evil and kind of a yandere. Violence is mostly minimal, but arguably gets intense when it does happen.





	1. Eleven and Daleks

Luna Lovegood was nine when she first encountered the man in the blue box.

Specifically, she was still wearing the black dress from her mother's funeral. That wasn't much of a time marker, though; she wore the dress for quite a while, just as a reminder. She did tend to forget the most important things...And it was always unpleasant when she remembered again...

But more to the point, on this particular evening, she was barefoot, sitting on an abnormally large derigible plum and imagining that the sun was really a creature that was devouring everything on the horizon. She was tracing its path with her fingers when the Thing dropped from the sky, landing only a hillside away.

Stunned and excited by the new occurance, Luna ran nearer the thing. It was when the hill peaked under her that she saw that the Thing from the sky was a blue Police Box.

How delightfully odd.

She skipped closer to the Police Box, attempting to open the door (Perhaps it could be explored.), but it was locked rather tightly. Then there was a sound behind her- almost a buzzing -and a clipped metallic voice shouted at her, "EXTERMINATE!"

Luna turned and fixed her large eyes on a sort of salt-shaker-shaped hulk of metal, complete with a light just in front and what looked an awful lot like a weapon pointed directly at her face.

"Sorry," she said cordially. "I didn't quite catch that."

"EXTERMINATE!" the creature or object repeated eagerly.

"Oh, goodie," Luna droned, hoping to buy time. She was effectively pinned between the Police Box door and the unfriendly metal thing. "Who are we exterminating?"

"YOU! WILL! BE! EXTERRRRRRMINATED!"

Luna cocked her head sideways, feeling threatened and immediately endangered but not particularly afraid. "Well, you haven't done it yet," she pointed out. "And anyway, we've hardly gotten to know each other."

The light on the metal thing moved a bit, vertically, and the motion caused Luna to wonder whether this was how the creature looked her up and down. "MOVE! AWAY! FROM THE! TARRRRDIS!" the tinny voice ordered.

"And then I get to be exterminated?" she asked, feigning alacrity.

"YOU! WILL! BE! EXTERRRRMINATED!" the thing- she decided to call it a Snorcack -confirmed.

That's when the blue door to the blue box opened, and a hand attached to an arm yanked Luna in and shut the door behind her. The man attached to the arm attached to the hand sighed in relief, and Luna looked past him to see that the blue box was attached to a much larger inside.

"Extension Charm," she observed.

The man looked down at her incredulously. He had an odd sort of face, almost like a cartoon rabbit, with a wide-ish nose and a prominent-ish chin. His hair was grown out and dark, and he seemed young, but in an old sort of way. His eyes were old.

Without warning, the blue box man began waving a sort of wand at her. It made whirring noises and lit up and looked...well, not very wandlike at all.

"Yes. Human," he said. "Definitely human. Who are you?"

"Luna Lovegood," the small girl answered, tucking back her dirty blond hair and holding out her hand to shake.

The man chose, instead, to grab her hand and examine it. "Still definitely human. Did you just stall a Dalek?"

Luna considered that. "Possibly. Did you just save my life?"

"Probably. No. Scratch that: Definitely. You were definitely going to die. Oh...Is that rude to say? I can never tell..."

"So let's have tea, then, yeah? My dad's home...He's made pudding."

"He-" The man stopped himself by smacking a hand to his head. "Alright. Rewind: I'm the Doctor."

"Doctor? That's an odd sort of name. That's like a Muggle Healer. Are you a Muggle?" She looked around the Tardis control room and shook her head at the thought. "Odd sort of Muggle."

"I'm not-...Alright. Rewind again. There is a Dalek outside, and..." The TARDIS shook with a sudden blast that sent Luna and the Doctor to the floor. Instantly, the Doctor was back on his feet and running to the controls. "Scratch that," he murmured. "There are _many_ Daleks outside." He started up darting restlessly from lever to lever to switch to screen. Definitely an odd sort of wizard, if he was one.

"Don't you know any spells?" Luna asked conversationally.

"Don't you?" the Doctor deflected back. "You're a witch, aren't you? That's a thing in this universe."

"I haven't got a wand yet," Luna pointed out. "You have."

"I...No, it's not a wand. It's a sonic screwdriver."

"Well, that doesn't sound nearly as useful. Where's your wand?"

"I haven't got one."

"So you are a Muggle."

"No...I mean...Look, I just..."

The Doctor rambled on incoherently like that, but Luna was dazzled by a sudden wonderful thought: "Are you a time lord?"

The Doctor paused at the TARDIS controls and looked back at her, peculiarly. "How do you know about time lords?"

"My mum knew about them. She was an expert."

"Was? So she's dead now?"

Luna nodded blankly.

The Doctor looked as though he were on the verge of saying something, but then the TARDIS controls made a strange noise, and his expression turned to utter exasperation. "Oh, not now..." he murmured almost feverishly.

"What?" Luna asked, approaching him.

"So, your dad," the Doctor said, regaining his energy, "is he cool? Like, really, really...cool?"

Luna just stared at him.

The Doctor rushed on, and Luna observed that he seemed uncomfortable keeping still. "Like, would he mind if-?...Oh, blast it." He pulled a lever to his right, and the TARDIS gave a lurch, almost sending Luna to the ground again, but this time, the Doctor caught her arm.

"What's happening?" she asked, almost to quietly to be heard over the whirring engine.

"We're escaping. No choice. Surrounded by Daleks...I daresay this sort of thing happens to me much too often."


	2. Luna and the TARDIS

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> And here we have the first test of Luna's synergy with Eleven.

The next several minutes consisted of the Doctor running about, reading off of screens, and occasionally swearing in Gallifreyan. It was a while before he looked up and noticed that the little blond-haired girl, Luna Lovegood, was sitting on the floor, reading from a book that she had not been holding when she entered the TARDIS.

"Oi!" the Doctor called out, and Luna looked politely up at him with her big, batty eyes. "Where'd you get that?"

"Your library," she answered dreamily. "Do you know the hallway changes? I half-thought it was a wrackspurt-"

"A what?"

"...a wrackspurt, messing with my brain, but it wasn't. The corridors really change."

"Why were you in the corridors? Do you know the sorts of things that come out of corridors?"

Luna waved the book in the air demonstratively.

"No, I mean _besides_ that-"

"What are you doing?" the girl digressed, tucking the book under her arm and getting to her feet.

"I'm trying to find someplace to land us that won't result in a time paradox or a Dalek attack...Don't touch anything!" he added as Luna neared the controls. She obediently folded her hands behind her back, book tightly clasped.

"I don't think you're doing a very good job," she confided.

"Yes, I know that! Thank you!"

The TARDIS gave another lurch, sending both girl and Doctor tumbling to the floor. Both were up again soon enough. Luna, after locating her borrowed book on the floor, cracked it open again and strode out of the Doctor's line of sight. He was honestly too distracted to stop her.

"Mr. The Doctor!" her voice called out. "Sir, I think you should try this lever."

"What lever?"

"Over here. This book says-"

The TARDIS gave yet another lurch...or, well, sort of a half-lurch. It started to lurch, and then it unexpectedly righted itself and started sailing swiftly towards some unknown destination.

"What?" the Doctor said aloud.

"Sorry," came the girl's voice from somewhere on the floor. "I touched something."

"What did you do?"

"Well, I was pointing at the lever and the TARDIS moved..."

"What lever?" the Doctor hurried over and helped the girl to her feet. Her eyes were impossibly bright.

She pointed out the lever that she had accidentally pushed. "Maybe the TARDIS wanted me to push it."

"The TARDIS-?" The Doctor was surprised. Most companions didn't immediately decide that the TARDIS was capable of conscious decision.

Not that this girl was a companion.

Still, all the same...

Luna continued: "Well, it sent me to the library, helped me find this book, and then it made me push the lever."

The Doctor placed a soothing hand on his TARDIS. "What are you doing, old girl?" he murmured to it.

He received no answer; instead, they slammed to a halt.

The Doctor opened the TARDIS door warily. The outside seemed safe enough- a cobblestone pathway between rows of warm-looking shops and taverns. He stepped out, slipping his hand into that of the small girl, who followed curiously behind him.

"Out you go...I don't suppose this is Diagon Alley?"

The girl shook her head.

"Don't suppose you have any idea where this is?"

She shook her head again. "Can't you find all that out?"

"Of course!" He released her hand in order to ruffle her hair before taking off at a run toward the nearest tavern.

Luna's expression turned contemplative, and she turned to reenterer the TARDIS.

"Come on then, Lovegood!" the Doctor called.

"I'm going back to the library!" she answered back. "Maybe the TARDIS has another book for me!"

"Right, then! Just stay where you are once you get there." He disappeared around a corner, then.

Luna turned on her heels and found that somebody had shut the TARDIS door, and it was now tightly locked once more. "Mr. The Doctor?!" she called out, then turned around another ninety degrees to find her path blocked by a man in a black trenchcoat and top hat.

"The Great Intelligence has need of you," the man droned, reaching for her as though he planned to sieze her head like a crystall ball.

Luna looked around and found herself entirely encircled by other men in trenchcoats, although the others lacked faces.

Trapped again. She was back to square one.


	3. The Great Intelligence

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> And thus begins an arc that, as mentioned in the story's description, is not necessarily essential. You can skip it if you want.

Luna approached the nearest faceless man in wonder.

"I suppose we all have need of great intelligence," she mused in response to The Man With The Face's ominous remark. "I've never heard it in reverse, though." She moved on to the next faceless man. "What does that mean: Great Intelligence had need of me?"

"I need a versatile and youthful mind," The Man With The Face replied gravely. "This form does little for me, now."

The circle of faceless men tightened, drawing Luna closer to the speaker.

She kept as much distance as she could, but also scrutinized the man. "Are you The Great Intelligence, then? What a funny name."

"I-"

"Not that it's not admirable. 'Wit beyond measure is man's greatest treasure', as they say."

"I-"

"Have you met Rowena Ravenclaw? She had great intelligence, too."

" _I_ am a being of unspeakable power."

 _Is this actually working?_ Luna wondered. _Is he still talking?_ She oriented herself nearer to the TARDIS door, all the while keeping up a steady babble. "The mind _is_ a powerful thing. 'Knowledge is power'. That's another phrase. There are plenty of those, really. 'Mind like a steel trap'. 'Tamper with the deepest mysteries- the source of life, the essence of self-'. 'The mind is a palace'."

Then, The Man With The Face grabbed ahold of Luna. The moment his hand touched the skin of her upper arm, a bolt of pain shot up her spine to her brain, and her screams filled the alley.

...

The people in the tavern were very nice. Except, the Doctor noted, they weren't exactly "people". And they tried to kill him.

But the beverages were good.

"Yes! Rum!" he exclaimed to a barmaid with tentacles growing out of her face. "Brilliant! Loads of rum! I love rum. What exactly is rum? I used to know..." _Alas,_ he thought, _I used to know a lot of things, but the mind can get slippery, especially where alcoholic beverages are concerned._

The barmaid clanked the jug onto the bar in front of him.

"Wonderful," the Doctor said more quietly. "Thank you. Say...what planet is this?"

The barmaid gave a snort and walked away (slunk away, really).

"Fine then," the Doctor muttered to no one. A smile was tugging at the corners of his lips. "Force me to do a bit of exploring, why don't you."

That was when one of the bar patrons grabbed the Doctor by the shoulder, quite roughly, and turned him around. "Doctor!" the creature yelled, his countenance unfriendly...or was that just his face? Hard to tell.

The Doctor responded with a smile and a sly movement that transitioned the creature's strong hand from his shoulder to his jug of rum. "Yes. That's me. Who are you? Wait, let me guess...You're the guy in charge, yes? Of course you are. You've got loads of badges...gotta love badges...Say, where am I?"

The creature snarled, hefted an axe, and again yelled, "Doctor!"

"Got it. Not friends." The Doctor ran, weaving between groups of creatures and out the tavern door. The creature with the badges did not cease his pursuit.

The time lord was nearly to the TARDIS when he saw the little blond girl, Luna, collapsed just an inch away from the blue box door. Again the Doctor cursed in Gallifreyan before scooping the child up, fumbling the TARDIS door open, entering, and shutting the door behind them.

Once they were shut in, the girl opened her batty eyes. "What happened?" she asked in her dreamy voice.

"I was going to ask you that," the Doctor rambled, setting the girl down on her feet and rushing to the TARDIS controls. "I don't know. I was in a pub and you passed out."

"I remember you leaving..." Luna pondered a bit. "I remember it feeling like something sucked the breath out of me, or like I caught a thousand wrackspurts all at once."

"Bad News Planet," the Doctor concluded breathlessly. "Let's go."

The TARDIS jolted skyward.

Luna sat down cross-legged. "Thank you, Mr. TARDIS," she sighed, petting the wall.

"'Mister'? She's a girl," the Doctor corrected the child incredulously.

Luna angled her head a bit and smiled. "How can you tell?"

"I-" The Doctor was briefly stumped. "She just is."

"Is TARDIS her whole name?" Luna asked.

"No. TARDIS stands for Time And Relative Dimension In Space. Her name is-" The Doctor stopped himself. "She...erm...doesn't have a name."

Luna opened her mouth to speak, but then she went very white and fell limp.

"Lovegood?!" Panicked, the Doctor ran to her side.

She was out cold, but her mouth began to speak on its own, with her voice: "I'd like to speak to the Doctor."

The time lord's face darkened, and his tone was gravely confident, his voice lowered, when he answered: "I'm listening, whoever you are."

...

Luna's eyes opened to the Doctor's pale face. He was staring at her, and she didn't remember falling asleep. She was also unsure as to why the Doctor looked so grim. There must have been something dreadfully wrong with her. Narrowing her eyes, she hazarded a guess: "Wrackspurts, right?"

The Doctor shook his head. "The Great Intelligence is now living inside your head," he told her. "Apparently, you're a being of great power."

"I'm a witch," Luna replied with a perplexed look.

"Half," the Doctor answered cryptically. Then he sprang to his feet, suddenly all energy again. "Alright, then, Lovegood, sit tight and think happy thoughts."

Luna stood as well. "Alright then. What'll you do?"

"The Great Intelligence has given me coordinates, and he really won't be glad he did."

"Coordinates where?"

With one hand on the TARDIS console, the Doctor turned around and smiled like the mad man he was. "Your mind," he said. Then the TARDIS sailed off.


	4. Luna's Mind

"You're going to land the TARDIS in my mind?" Luna asked, looking truly surprised for the first time today.

"Going to try to," the Doctor panted back as he literally sprinted about the controls.

"Will I still get to walk around and things?"

"Luna Lovegood, you sound like Martha."

"Martha who?"

"Oh, _now_ you do the thing." He yanked at a lever.

"How does that work? The mind thing?"

The Doctor paused just long enough to answer, "A mind is like a TARDIS: bigger on the inside and many places at once. But the most important thing for you to remember, Lovegood, is that it's _your_ mind. The Great Intelligence can't put anything there that isn't there already, but once it's there, it's a weapon that he can use against you."

Luna blanched but nodded pensively. "It works the other way, too, though, doesn't it?"

"Exactly!" the Doctor agreed brightly, and he ruffled her hair once more before returning to his sprinting and lever-pulling. "Now, we need a landing strip here...Can you think up maybe a really sunny meadow?"

Luna conjured up all of her focus. Blue sky, loads of grass and flowers...bunnies...

The TARDIS slammed into the ground, jarring her.

"Oh dear." The Doctor scratched at his prominent chin. "Sorry about that. Now, let's go, Ravenclaw!"

"What?"

"What? Come on, get a move on!"

Luna clambered to her feet and met the Doctor at the door.

"Think meadowy thoughts," the time lord reminded her before opening the door...

...to a beautiful, green meadow.

Luna sighed in relief and followed the Doctor out into the sun and the blue.

Then she saw the woman. She was tall, with long, brown hair, and clad in a bright blue sundress. She danced about and laughed as though the wind were whispering wonderful things in her ears.

Luna inhaled. "Mum?" she called out, but the familiar woman didn't hear her.

At the same time, however, the Doctor, in a perplexed voice, called out, "Clara!"

Luna shrieked louder, "Mummy!"

The woman at last turned to look at her daughter, only to vanish into thin air immediately after.

"No!" Luna shouted, then concentrated on conjuring her mother up again. No matter how hard she focused, nobody appeared. She felt tears sting her eyes, which was new for her; she didn't normally cry. That was her dad's job. Her job was to stay happy.

With this in mind, she shuddered and wiped the tears away. She could feel herself becoming angry, but she suppressed it.

Suddenly, however, the ground where her mother had been standing split open, sending a crack travelling through the rolling hills and separating Luna and the Doctor.

"Lovegood!" the Doctor exclaimed. "Calm down!"

"I am!" she replied as the chasm betwixt them grew.

"Only on the outside," the Doctor called. "We're on the inside."

Luna nodded slowly. "That makes sense." She felt another tear run down her cheek, and she allowed it, focusing instead on breathing, making peace inside of her.

The ground stopped splitting, but the Doctor was out of sight. Before her was a vast sea. She pursed her lips and shouted out, "This is my mind!", and her voice echoed and reverberated throughout all corners of the world on which she now stood. "You can't win inside my own mind!"

That was when she experienced the familiar breathless sensation and passed out again.

...

When the ground stopped moving, the Doctor found himself in an odd sort of marsh...Well, "odd" was a relative term. It had all of the murkiness characteristic of your run-of-the-mill marsh, but it was filled with whispering voices and shimmering faces that appeared and disappeared in the blink of an eye, like wil-o-the-whisps.

The Doctor straightened his bow tie and was about to enter the marsh when a familiar voice spoke behind him: "They're wrackspurts."

Turning around, the Doctor saw Clara Oswald, only dressed in a blue gown and drifting like a ghost or a siren. "What?" he said.

"The voices," Clara answered. "They're wrackspurts. The glowing things are nargles."

"Clara?" the Doctor murmured. _Alright, so there's another version of Clara floating about who is Luna Lovegood's mother,_ he thought. _So what? That's how time streams work._ "What are wrackspurts and nargles?"

"When the wrackspurts get louder, you'll know you're close," Clara said, her form flickering, "but don't listen to them, or you'll lose your mind."

"Funny thing, a mind," the Doctor rambled. "Always a thing you find when you're not looking for it."

"Clever boy," Clara sighed, then vanished.

"Oh, come on!" the Doctor called out plaintively. Then he squared his shoulders, shook out his arms, and started into the marsh.

...

Luna woke with a start and found herself bound in a room that resembled her own, only gigantic and dark. She stood, faintly aware of the cold against her bare feet, and stuggled physically and mentally against the ropes that bound her wrists. _This is my mind, and in my mind, I choose NO ROPES._

It seemed that the darkness was laughing at her. The voice was very deep and eerie. "Of course I can not kill you," it mused, "but I can keep you trapped here, in the midst of your greatest fears, tucked away within the shadowy regions of your mind."

Luna took a deep breath and thought that over. "Honestly, trapped is trapped, isn't it? Why go to the trouble of keeping me in a nightmare when you could just let me stumble about aimlessly? You don't need me to suffer."

The reply was brief and malevolent: "I get bored."

Then a chill fell over Luna, and something crept out of the shadows.

It was a human, and, despite the dim lighting, it seemed familiar.

"Dad?" Luna said cautiously.

Then the figure fell to its knees and started convulsing, morphing, growing. Horns sprouted from its head, and its back arched, and fangs grew from its face.

Luna didn't hesitate to run, but it was like dream-running; her position in relation to everything else in the room didn't change. Not really.

So instead, when the Crumple-Horned Snorcack bounded toward her, she sat down cross-legged, closed her eyes, and dreamed of sunlight.


	5. Chapter 5

The Doctor was able to ignore the wrackspurts up to the point at which they started whispering names.

_"Rose Tyler."_

__

_"Martha Jones."_

__

_"Donna Noble."_

Then, like a fool, he stopped. "How are those names here?" he demanded. "This is Luna's mind! She doesn't know those names."

Then the voices changed:

_"When was the last time you danced?"_

__

"He never looked at her twice."

__

_"Donna Noble has been saved."_

"LUNA LOVEGOOD DOES NOT KNOW ANY OF THIS!" the Doctor shouted.

The deep voice of the Great Intelligence replied, seemingly emitted by the trees: "No, but I do."

"You're inside her mind," the Doctor protested. "Nothing can exist inside her mind that she doesn't know about."

"She put the wrackspurts here, which are creatures which have access to one's thoughts. I only made use of them."

_"Goodbye, sweetie."_

"I'm not listening!" the Doctor declared firmly, then strode on, reaching for his screwdriver to run a scan on his surroundings.

His screwdriver was not in his pocket. He backtracked, searching the ground, and one of the glowing creatures appeared right in front of his face before vanishing.

"Nargles are certainly mischievous creatures, aren't they?" the Great Intelligence intoned gaily.

The Doctor's face went almost blank, which was never good. "Give me back my screwdriver, and, while you're at it, leave Luna Lovegood alone, or you'll really regret it."

"I will?" the voice chuckled, and, suddenly, hundreds of glowing faces appeared all around the Doctor, snarling.

On this cue, the time lord chose a direction and ran.

...

Instead of opening them, Luna shut her eyes tighter. The Snorcack was breathing down into her face, and there didn't seem to be any light outside.

"Mr. The Great Intelligence?" she said quietly.

"Yes?" the voice replied.

"Sir, you can't kill me inside my mind."

"I can't?" The voice feigned disappointment.

"No." _Her_ voice cracked.

"Why can't I?"

Luna found the courage to open her eyes, then. The Snorcack was still there, still terrifying in theory, but she stood and placed a gentle hand on its nose. The creature stilled. "Because this is my mind," she whispered, crooning, sort of, to the beast. Then she wrapped her arms around its neck and pressed her face into its side. It tensed, but she remained where she was. "My mind," she said again, "and I'm not afraid of you."

The Snorcack disappeared, and the world seemed to swirl around Luna.

She shouted into the abyss, "My mind won't hurt me!"

The Great Intelligence answered smugly, "I will."

Then she ground vanished from under her, and she was falling.

"I'm not falling," she decided aloud. "I'm flying."

And her surroundings chose to agree with her; suddenly, she realized that gravity was going the other way, and she was really only flying upside-down.

"Silly girl," the Great Intelligence said impatiently. " _Everything_ here will hurt you."

Then she landed in a meadow- a different meadow than before -full of bright red flowers like something out of a Muggle film...and Daleks. Lots and lots of Daleks.

"EXTERMINATE!" they all shouted at the same time, and Luna smiled a little because she'd been through this before; Daleks were so, so easy to stall.

Then she saw that they weren't aiming at her; they were aiming at her parents. Her mother, small and beautiful, and her father, lean and smiling. Oblivious. And then every weapon went off at once, and they were gone.

"No!" Luna screamed, and thunder and lightning tore the sky. She crumpled to the ground and hugged her knees to her chest. _It's not real_ , she reminded herself, and the words rang audibly here. _It's not real._

"It's very real," the Great Intelligence argued. "Your reality exists in your mind. Unfortunately, I own it now."

And then Luna felt a bit of very real fear, because she knew exactly what existed in her mind. She knew exactly. She was in the garden of every nightmare she'd ever had.

On cue, a swarm of cornish pixies assaulted her, tugging at her hair and scratching at her face, aiming, it seemed, for her eyes. She curled into fetal position.

"You said that your mind won't hurt you," the Great Intelligence said, "but that's all it will do. It will torture you and tear at you and plague you forever, and there's nothing you can do about it."

 _THIS ISN'T REAL!_ Luna's mind yelled, and Luna, herself, called out, "The question, then, becomes: What's in it for you? What do you want with me?"

"I've told you: The Great Intelligence needs a new host. Your fear is merely for fun."

"By _host_ , you mean _body_. So you can control me in here. Right?"

There was no reply, but Luna's heartbeat had accelerated, and it rocked the world, blurring lines everywhere.

"A mind is like a TARDIS," Luna whispered, gradually working it out. "It's bigger on the inside and many places at once. So right now, I'm inside of another me. A me that you're controlling."

"Very clever," the Great Intelligence intoned blandly. "In our personal encounter, I planted the seeds for this future, but it took time for it to fully manifest."

Luna stood, and the cornish pixies promptly heightened their attack on her. "Mr. The Great Intelligence, you shouldn't have brought me here," she told him softly, "because I'm about to help me destroy you." Then she ran into the darkest shadow and disappeared.

...

When the Doctor cleared the last of the trees, he found himself in the same meadow as before, TARDIS and all.

"What?" he said allowed.

Clara appeared to him, then. Her expression was far more urgent, this time, and she handed him a stick...no, a wand. "Take this," she ordered him.

"But...No," he protested. "I'm not a wizard. I don't need a wand; I need my screwdriver."

"You can't get your screwdriver back until Luna gets her mind back," Clara said quickly. "You have to find her, and you have to give her this."

"Where is she?" the Doctor asked.

"The wind will take you there. The Great Intelligence wants you to find him. Run." Clara placed her hands on either side of his face and said, earnestly, "Run, you clever boy, and find my daughter."

...

When Luna emerged from the shadow, she found her bare feet smacking against some sticky sort of mud.

 _Quick sand?_ was the first thing she thought, and immediately after, the mud started to swallow her.

 _Stupid_ , she cursed herself, and a chorus of insults hurled themselves at her from the darkness. _Stupid girl. How can you win? You will fail. The Great Intelligence will always be stronger._

"That's not me," Luna said serenely. "I can tell when it's my voice and when it's yours." She had sunk to her knees, now, and the sand was speeding up.

 _Fine, then, I'll just sink_ , she decided. _I'll sink into the underneath and see where I land. You can't scare me, Mr. The Great Intelligence._

And then her mouth was under, and her nose, and her eyes, and the top of her head, and she landed...Well, it wasn't really landing. It was more like hanging suspended in darkness. But she could breath, so that was good. She swam through the dark, and then a scream cut through the air, startling her so much, she couldn't focus on her inner peace. She started to fall.

The scream was her mother's. It was the same scream that she'd heard that afternoon when she went to call her mother to lunch only to find...

_This. Is. Not. Real._

Luna stopped thinking, stopped remembering, stopped fearing, stopped everything, and just breathed. She put her mind on pause and focused on air. Her falling stopped, the screaming stopped, but the Great Intelligence's voice started to speak.

"Clearing your mind, little girl? Thanks. I needed that."

And Luna felt as though some sort of potion had been spilled all over her, because her skin began to burn, and all she could do was writhe in midair. "Ssssssstop," she panted.

"Do you want to see the you that you are in this time?" the Great Intelligence purred, and then a light seemed to come on and Luna saw...her own face. Only, she was older, and there were scars, and she was dirty and slumped against a mirror, panting and looking haunted.

"Luna?" the voice belonged to a boy with brown hair and a kind, round face.

"Neville," the older Luna said in a distant voice, trying to maintian a smile while an all-out war went on inside of her mind.

"Are you alright?" the boy, Neville, asked. "Was it the Carrows?"

"I'm-"

The light went out, and young Luna found herself suspended in darkness again.

"Dear me," the Great Intelligence droned with mock-pity. "I think you've just been caught by the Death Eaters."

"Death Eaters?" Luna repeated, alarmed. _Voldemort comes back?_

But then she regained control of herself. This was what he wanted. He was thriving on her fear.

Whatever potion or acid that had been pouring on her skin began to itch and burn at her muscles. She let loose a sob. "You c-can't kill me inside my mind," she said, and she was mildly chagrined to find that she was sort of whimpering. "I saw myself grown up. That means I m-make it through this."

"Yes, but you've seen what you become," the Great Intelligence replied, almost soothingly. "Does it matter?"

Luna felt her eyelids shutting.


	6. Chapter 6

For a terrifying moment, Luna thought that it was all over.

Then she remembered who she was and what she did when she was afraid or in pain: She put the thoughts away.

She wasn't brave- No, she would never call herself _brave_ -but she had a great big mind with loads of hidey holes. She only had to find one...

...as her skin burned under the darkness and the potion and what sort of potion could that be? Obviously toxic, but was the source of this pain, this burning...Don't think about the burning!...Did it come from heat? Or venom of some kind? It wasn't as though she had taken a Potions class. Not that she thought she'd like Potions...not much, at least...it was fine as an idle passtime, sort of like baking a derrigible plum pie, but as an actual study it seemed much too stressful. Charms, now that was a class she expected to enjoy. Herbology as well; she had always loved gardening. What else was there? Defense Against the Dark Arts, of course...the one that was being taught by a vampire, as her father had informed her (in confidence). There was that rune study class...What was it called?

The sizzling pain stopped and the wind was knocked out of her as she dropped to the ground someplace. Immediately she felt as though gravity had split so that there was the ordinary force pulling her down and a slightly lesser force dragging her sideways. (That would've hurt quite a bit, the dragging, if the ground didn't seem to be mostly devoid of friction.) As she tumbled along, the scenery stunned her by offering forth the most random conglomeration of images.

Oh. She was in this part of her mind, which, she noted, might be worse than the dark, scary part, because this part would be hard to escape. Already errant thoughts were _What is that?_ interrupting her logical _I've always wanted to see that!_ side.

And maybe she didn't want her logical side. Maybe she didn't want to be free of this fantastical dreamland...Literally a dreamland! Maybe she wanted to just sleep in the comfortable chaos of her thoughts.

But...

The round face of the boy called "Neville" flashed into her mind and then before her eyes, just for a moment.

She still had a life to live. She believed this wholeheartedly, in a wordless surge of Certainty that was only wordless because the noise in her head was tearing away her words. _Out!_ she managed. _Out! Out! Out!_

...

**OUT.**

The word gave the Doctor pause as he attempted to make his way through the twisting countryside of Luna Lovegood's mind. It shook at his surroundings, seeming to search for something to latch onto so that it could remain coherent.

**OUT.**

It was trying to evict him.

Well, Luna wasn't, but the Great Intelligence was, and it was using her for it.

It was working. The Doctor could feel himself being ripped away, like magic; being slowly sent off. He'd find himself actually inside his TARDIS in alternating moments. Her magic was strong. Very strong.

"Luna!" the Doctor shouted into the sky. "Luna, you have to listen to me! This is the Doctor speaking! Mr. The Doctor! You can hear me, and I know that because this is _your_ mind! Focus on my voice!"

**OUT.**

"No, not me out; him out! You're sending me away, and without me, you're alone with him! Help me to save you, Lovegood. You've got to find him in your mind first; your personal mind, not this physical place. You can do that, and I know you can, because it's in your blood. You are part witch, but you're also part something else; something that can do the impossible."

The earthquake lessened.

"So how about it, Impossible Luna?" the Doctor said. "Are you the master of your mind?" He lifted the wand he'd received. "This isn't yours yet, but it will be. You're the only one here who can use it, Luna. Find your way to it. Concentrate."

"Mr. The Doctor?" a faint voice said.

"Yes?" the Doctor implored of the sky.

Then, Luna walked up, but not nine-year-old, black funeral dress Luna. This Luna wore a neon skirt, colorful leggings, a Quibbler t-shirt, and radish earrings. This Luna had to be at least fifteen.

"Mr. The Doctor," Older Luna began in her same dreamy voice, "I do think that this Great Intelligence may deserve a bit of a run." She took her wand from him.

Eleven gawked and smiled. Finally, something was going his way.


	7. Chapter 7

Young Luna was beginning to grow content with her daydreams (the most dangerous thing to grow: content) when a lone figure began to make its way toward her. This figure would not have been noticeable had it not seemed to radiate light and order.

Upon further inspection, Luna recognized the figure as a rabbit. A bouncing bunny-rabbit made of light. It drifted closer and started nuzzling against her face; strange, because it actually seemed to have substance, warmth...

And it actually drew her undivided focus.

She ran her hand down the length of its body, and it suddenly dissolved, all of the light absorbing into her.

And the distractions fell away, enough for her to see where she really was: in a swamp that was full of nargles. And if she listened closely...were those wrackspurts? Speaking words of the past and promises of the future...And question words, asking Where is Harry Potter? Does your father know where he is? What has he said to you of the Dark Lord?

Luna started to move closer to the voices, struggling to make out what they were saying, when a hand pulled her up short. She whipped around to see...the Older Luna from the illusion, except less injured-looking and brighter-eyed.

Luna-of-the-Future shook her head. "Spoilers," she warned with her gleaming eyes. "In all your adventures with Mr. The Doctor, that's the one thing you'll learn: no spoilers." She appeared to think it over. "But also loads of fun and not nearly enough pudding. And you'll want to keep a journal."

Luna of the Not-Future pondered what was the most important question to address just now. She went with the immediate problem: "The Great Intelligence. How do I defeat it?"

"It's like Mr. The Doctor said," Older Luna answered. "You're master of your own mind, more so than most. Some might argue even more so than Hermione Granger."

"Who?"

"Just a friend. A particularly unimaginative one...but a friend." Luna of the Future seemed so at peace, Young Luna couldn't help but compare her to the injured, haunted Future Luna from the images. She wondered if this Luna came from before or after, but she decided not to ask because that, too, would be spoilers. Time travel was terribly mysterious. "What I mean," Future Luna continued, "is that our mentality is not bound by or confined to the realm of logic. We're able to expand past that. Our mind is like rubber; it's flexible and resilient. It's because of that that Mr. The Great Intelligence is having trouble keeping his purchase on it. Our mind bends and refuses to be confined, so he has to conform to its logic. Our logic. And we have power over that."

"Was that your Patronus?" Young Luna asked suddenly. "The rabbit?"

Older Luna beamed. "Saving my past self with my own Patronus; that's a lesson I learned from Harry Potter."

"Harry Potter?"

"Another friend."

"Really?"

"Don't seek him out at Hogwarts," Older Luna instructed. "In your time, you'll run into each other. And he'll need your help a few times."

Young Luna reached out to touch one of the radishes dangling from her older counterpart's ear. "Did you make these earrings?" she asked, awed. "I want a pair! They must be brilliant at-"

"Sorry!" called a voice as Mr. The Doctor stumbled into view. "Have we forgotten about the dark force that's thriving?" He planted his fists on his hips bossily.

"Intelligence isn't inherently dark or light," Young Luna said automatically. "But it _is_ inherently limited."

"Pardon me, but I've encountered the Great Intelligence enough; I think I'd know...Oh!" Mr. The Doctor paused, seeming to realize something. "Oh, you're being clever over there, aren't you?"

"Do it," Older Luna said to Younger Luna with a grin that seemed like it could devour whole universes. "You know what to do. Go on!" Then Older Luna turned into a glowing rabbit, exactly like the Patronus, and hopped through the air, eating away the nargles.

"What are you thinking?" Mr. The Doctor asked the one remaining Luna, looking as though his Christmas had come early.

"A lot of things," Luna answered with a smile. "And they're all mad."

Then the world exploded.


	8. Safe! Take a Breather

Luna woke up in her bedroom at home, which was a situation that she instantly did not trust. She checked under the bed and in the cabinets and everywhere that she could think of to find a sign of the Great Intelligence's trickery. Then, she checked her mind. The lurking shadow that had been present for such a while, now, seemed to have gone. She felt...healthy.

"Luna!" a voice called out. "Luna, darling? Are you awake?"

Luna descended the staircase to find her father, Xenophilius Lovegood, pouring three cups of tea. One was set aside for her, one for her father, and the third...

"Mr. The Doctor? What's happened?"

The stringy man was gleefully (and most ungracefully) sipping from his own cup, but stopped abruptly once he saw Luna. "Alright, there, Luna?" he asked loudly. "I was a bit worried for a moment. You took quite a _fall_ on that _hillside_." The way he emphasized his words emphatically and winked after speaking made for what had to be the least subtle lie Luna Lovegood had ever heard, but she went along with it.

"I suspect it was wrackspurts," she said sagely. "I've been out of sorts all day."

"Well, at least Mr. The Doctor was there to carry you back," Mr. Lovegood answered brightly. "But you should be more careful, darling. I have taught you how to get rid of wrackspurts. You just have to be quick enough."

Luna nodded absently while drinking her tea. She couldn't imagine how Mr. The Doctor had managed to put her father in such a good mood, but there it was, and she was grateful for it.

She never got to ask for an explanation that day as to what happened in her mind; the time lord left just as swiftly as he'd arrived.

...

The second time Luna Lovegood saw Mr. The Doctor, she was eleven.


	9. Luna Arrives at Hogwarts

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> And here the story's main narrative resumes.

Luna Lovegood's compartment on the journey to Hogwarts was usually unoccupied, apart, of course, from Luna herself. Even on the trip First Year, the voyage was made in solitude after two girls spent five minutes sitting across from her, exchanged a pregnant look, and departed. Luna did not mind; she merely smoothed out her skirt over her colorful leggings and watched the countryside drag along. It was all very beautiful. She was even certain that she saw a pale blue car wobbling through the sky...

_Whoosh! Whoosh!_

Luna turned her head slowly and found that the compartment was now furnished with a large, blue box.

"Hullo!" a man yelled as he sprang from the box, teetering on his feet as though making sure his thoughts wouldn't slide out of his ears.

"Hmm," Luna sighed. "You've changed your bowtie this go. How was it that we left my mind, Mr. The Doctor?"

Without answering, the strange cartoony man gazed around the compartment, then looked thrilled. "Don't tell me...Is this the Hogwarts Express?"

"Why would you ask a question after telling me not to answer it?"

"Oh!" The Doctor's grin broadened. "You are clever! Still mad as ever. Brilliant."

Luna stood and proceeded to stroke the TARDIS's side.

"She's been missing you," the Doctor said, and Luna was unsure whether he was talking to her or the TARDIS. "Now! Off to Hogwarts! Or...from Hogwarts. Is it to or from?"

"To."

"And what year is this? For you, I mean."

"It's my first year," she answered.

"Oh! Oh. Chamber of Secrets. This is going to be interesting." His nose wrinkled a bit.

Luna was briefly confused, but then remembered that Mr. The Doctor had, of course, seen the future. "The Chamber of Secrets?" Luna's gaze brightened. "So I was right; It's real!"

"You're looking a bit cheerful, to be finding out that every Muggle-born in the school is in grave danger."

"I never knew whether the Chamber was real," she answered, unabashed.

"You weren't sure? You? I thought you believed every story."

"Not every story is true," Luna said.

"You're one to talk," the Doctor muttered, then suddenly shouted: "So! Has the trolley come by yet?" He plopped onto the seat, and she followed.

"Not yet," she answered.

"And you. Why're you sitting all alone?" His voice has lowered, and he suddenly seemed concerned for her.

"There were two other girls, but they chose to leave. I think they found my presence disconcerting. Do you know I saw a flying car moments ago?"

"Was it pale blue?" the Doctor asked gleefully.

"Yes," Luna replied. "How did you know?"

"No reason. Oh! So you've got your own wand, now, haven't you?"

Luna nodded, drawing the long, slender object from a skirt pocket. "My father gave it to me yesterday," she said breathily. "It's quite lovely."

"Yes, it is."

"You never answered. How did we leave my mind?"

"You, of course. You stopped trying to instill order. In the chaos that followed, the strongest force present would be the one that controlled our fates." He looked at her expectantly.

"You don't mean that force was me," Luna said knowingly.

"Of course not. That force was the TARDIS. Whipped us out in a jiffy; I took you right along home."

Luna stood to touch the TARDIS again. "Thank you," she whispered.

The train stopped, suddenly.

"Ooooooh!" The Doctor rubbed his hands together. "This is going to be brilliant! Hogwarts castle! The Sorting! Albus Dumbledore! Oh, and Gilderoy Lockhart will be there."

"Father told me that Gilderoy Lockhart doesn't know anything," Luna said, as though the memory has just floated to mind.

"And what do you think?"

"I don't believe I've ever met someone who didn't know anything before."

The Doctor grinned. "I've got to go, but I'll be back."

"Where are you going?"

"There's a tree that I want to see."

"A tree?"

"Yes. A brilliant, fantastic tree." He spun her around, then vanished into the TARDIS, which then vanished entirely. Luna was left alone.

She shook her head and started humming to herself. She continued the song until she had reached the doors of Hogwarts. But once there, she had a peculiar feeling that someone was watching her, somewhere near the corner where the winged statues loomed.

Luna blinked.


	10. Tom Riddle

Since the hall was empty, but for her (She had fallen behind.), Luna was the only one to see that the statue suddenly halved the distance betwixt them.

Curious, Luna drew closer to it. "Exceptional," she said, moving her upcoming Sorting to a side-tab in her mind. "I wonder...Are you alive?" she asked the statue. "Could you show me whether you're alive? Could you tell me?" She waited a while in silence, but no sound, no movement, greeted her.

Momentarily uncertain (for, she could still be late for Sorting), Luna took a few steps back and glanced behind her at the desertedness. When she glanced back, the statue was millimeters away from touching her. She gasped and retreated a few more steps, keeping the statue firmly planted in sight. She had gained about two meters when she heard a fluttering sound just behind her and felt a whisper at the back of her neck.

She had just whipped around to see a second statue on the other side of her when she felt stone press against her, and her surroundings vanished.

She was in a gray room with a cupboard and a bed and a boy.

"How'd you get in here?" the boy demanded, sounding a peculiar mix of angry that she was trespassing, stunned that she'd appeared so suddenly, and hungry for answers. "How did you do that? That wasn't..." He broke off, then seemed to decide not to finish his sentence.

Luna gazed about her. "You have a lovely bedroom," she said.

The boy scowled. "It's not mine. It belongs to the orphanage."

Seeing the problem, Luna looked for something to compliment on the boy. "You've a lovely nose, then. That's yours."

The boy raised his eyebrows, but looked a bit pleased. "You're mad."

"I'm Luna. What's your name?"

The boy scowled again. "Tom Riddle."

"Riddle? That's pretty. I do love riddles."

"It's a common name," Tom said spitefully, not accepting the compliment.

"Is there something else I ought to call you?" Luna asked.

Tom paused, then shook his head.

"Well then. Could you tell me where I am, Tom?"

"I told you: the orphanage."

"Yes, only I think I've been transported," Luna said patiently. "And I'm not certain how far. I fear I may miss my Sorting."

"Sorting?"

Before Luna could say any more, and before Tom could ask any more, a swishing sound filled the room, and once again Mr. The Doctor tumbled out of the TARDIS. "Got your message! Came as soon as I could, which was pret-ty soon," he said brightly.

"What message?" Luna asked.

"You mean you didn't leave one yet?" the Doctor screwed his face up a bit. "Bother. Remember to do that later. Oi! Who's this?" He donned a great big smile as he noticed the room's other occupant.

"How'd you get in here?" Tom demanded again, more angrily, now. "Tell me how you do that!"

"This is Tom," Luna said. "Tom Riddle."

The Doctor's face fell. "Tom Riddle?" His expression grew cloudly. "Ohhhhh...We have got to go."

"No!" Tom shouted, taking a threatening step toward the Doctor. "You can leave, but don't take her! She's my friend!"

Luna was admittedly surprised to hear this, but she smiled all the same. "I'll come back," she told him.

"No!" the Doctor protested.

"Why not?" Tom demanded.

The Doctor smacked himself in the forehead. "Oi! You're to be Sorted soon, Lovegood. Let's bugger off. Wouldn't want to bother young...er...Tom." As the Doctor led her into the TARDIS, Luna called out, "See you, Riddle!" before the door closed.

Luna hadn't been inside the TARDIS in a while, but it was still familiar and warm. Mr. The Doctor was hunched over the controls, seeming to deliberately shut her out. Luna simply drew nearer to him and waited for him words to come pouring out.

Eventually, they did: "He's dangerous, understand? I know he seems like he's just a boy right now, but he's dangerous."

"He doesn't seem like just a boy," Luna disagreed. "I think he wanted to hurt you just now. Really hurt you. And he doesn't like being common; he thinks he needs to be different. And you know who he is, as well. Is he Voldemort?"

"What?" The Doctor was shocked at her deduction.

"Is he? Is he Voldemort young? Did that statue send me to the past?"

"Statue?" the Doctor repeated, alarmed.

"I want to see him again."

"The statue?"

"The boy."

"Why, when you know that he's Voldemort?"

"Maybe there's a chance," she answered vaguely. "Maybe he can grow up differently. Shouldn't someone give him a chance?"

"He got a chance. He got sent to Hogwarts. He made Horcruxes and killed a bunch of people. Chances over."

"Horcruxes?"

"Spoilers. But no. The idea that Lord Voldemort is anything but evil is a lie from the depths of Tumblr."

"He hasn't got magic yet," Luna pointed out. "And I have. I'd be safe to at least try to make him-"

"You are naïve," the Doctor said harshly.

"No," Luna disagreed with dignified resign. "I'm mad."

The Doctor was quiet for a long time. Then, at last, he broke into a grin. "Alright. Fine. We're fixing Voldemort. But first, we're going to hurry up and Sort you into Ravenclaw."

"Spoilers!" Luna protested indignantly.

The Doctor zipped his lips and shoved her out of the TARDIS.


	11. Tom's Soulwig

It wasn't until after her first week of Hogwarts that Luna waited by the Black Lake for the Doctor to pick her up. She was barefoot, trailing her toes in the water and feeling serene. She didn't even shift her position when she heard the TARDIS noise behind her.

"Come along then, Lovegood," the Doctor said.

Luna stood. "Have you ever seen a thestral?" she asked distantly.

"No, but I do a lot of reading," the Doctor said with a cryptic smile. "Sorry I'm late; I was dealing with an infestation of sorts."

"What sort of infestation?" Luna asked, passing him to enter the TARDIS.

"Statues," the Doctor replied darkly.

"Angel statues?"

"Yes."

"I wondered where those went. Nobody else seemed to notice."

"Yes, well, you're different than everybody else."

"I know," Luna said calmly, although something must have seemed odd in her voice, because suddenly Mr. the Doctor was noticing her bare feet.

His face grew serious. "Your shoes. Were they stolen?"

"That's a possibility," Luna answered, more curious about the Doctor's concern than the state of her shoes. "I do think I left them on the night stand, so as to be safe from anything that might crawl under the bed...They seem to have wandered off, though."

"'Under the bed'?" the Doctor repeated.

"Mr. the Doctor, you're stalling," Luna said. "I want to see Tom."

The Doctor sighed and rolled his eyes. "Alright, Lovegood. Let's be off, then." He strode about the controls, flicked dramatically at some switches, and sent the TARDIS swirling through non-matter.

When they slammed to a stop, Luna skipped merrily to the door.

"Wait!" the Doctor called, jogging after her.

She did, serenely upturning her face to look at him.

"A few ground rules," the Doctor said. "First: If I think he's going to turn dangerous, we leave."

"Of course," Luna said, smiling distantly.

"Second: Do not leave your wand unattended around him. In fact, avoid showing him your wand at all."

"All right." Luna nodded.

"Now, I'm not exactly sure where we are in his timeline, so give him no spoilers. Nothing about Hogwarts, nothing about Death Eaters."

"Even if telling him could save him?" Luna said gravely.

The Doctor stared down into Lovegood's face. "You truly do plan to save Voldemort's soul, do you? You care that much?"

Luna frowned a bit. "It must hurt him, to be so dark, mustn't it? I think about it a lot. More, now, since I've met him. It must hurt him an awful lot. And saving him could save other people, too: the Longbottoms, the Prewetts, the Potters..."

"Your mother?" the Doctor guessed.

Luna shook her head. "My mother died after the fall of Voldemort. She was experimenting..."

"Right," the Doctor said hastily. "I forgot."

Luna knew that she hadn't told him this story before, but she was also aware that he was a time traveler and could have heard it from a future version of herself. But then...if she was telling him now, she wouldn't likely tell him in the future, would she?

Before she could think more on it, the Doctor's countenance brightened, and he threw open the TARDIS door. "Hello, Tom!" he exclaimed, entering the room beyond and beginning to bounce up and down on Tom Riddle's bed.

Riddle himself was sitting at his window, staring at the TARDIS. When Luna stepped out, the boy's expression turned greedy. "You're back," he observed with a grin.

Luna was pleased, if a bit uneasy, to have been missed by Young Voldemort. "How long has it been for you?"

"Since yesterday," Tom answered. "Why? Is time different where you're from?"

"It's been a week for us," Luna answered.

Tom peered at her, calculating. "Can you send him away?" he asked, nodding at the Doctor. "So we can talk alone?"

"Absolutely not," the Doctor said before Luna could even open her mouth all the way.

"She can speak for herself," Tom retorted sharply, not taking his dark eyes off of Luna. "She's clever."

Luna was aware that this had to be flattery, seeing as she had barely spoken to Tom, let alone said anything clever to him. Unless...Unless this wasn't only his second time seeing her. With time travel, who could tell?

"Careful, Tom," the Doctor said quietly, "or I'll set your wardrobe on fire. Then what'll happen to all the things you've stolen?"

"How do you know that?" Tom demanded, his face contorting with rage. Some glass ornament on his desk shattered.

Luna, sensing danger, did the first thing that came to mind: she hugged him. It was a way to repel various breeds of heart-parasites, though not a very safe one. Riddle tensed in her hold, but seemed pleased with the attention.

"Can you make him go away?" Tom asked again, and Luna detected a particularly manipulative softness to his tone, now.

Luna backed away from Tom but glanced at the Doctor.

"No!" the time lord shouted preemptively. "No! And you know why not, as well, Lovegood!"

"Mr. the Doctor, with all you know about Tom, do you think that he would hurt me?" Luna asked calmly, hoping that the man would pick up on her psychological maneuvering.

The Doctor stared into Luna's eyes for a few seconds, as though he knew what she was doing but didn't like it in the slightest. At last, though, he said, "I suppose not. But I will be back. Soon." He shut himself in the TARDIS, but the box did not vanish.

"He cares quite a lot," Luna said, by way of explanation.

"I don't like doctors," Tom said, his eyes narrowed very slightly but his voice steady. Luna noted that he was a bit taller than her, even though he obviously wasn't quite Hogwarts age yet. This wasn't remarkable, for Luna was rather small, but it did make him seem a bit more intimidating. Perhaps it would help, she decided, if he didn't see her as much of a threat. "You haven't told me how you do the things that you do," Tom added.

"You mean you don't know? You do it as well," Luna said, setting herself down on the edge of his bed.

"I thought I was the only one," Tom answered, averting his eyes. Even so, Luna could feel the resentment radiating from him, and she almost shivered.

Luna rose from Tom's bed to sit, instead, on his windowsill. She noted that the windowsill wasn't dusty, which must have meant that he opened and closed his window quite a bit. "It's magic," she told him simply. "And that's all I can tell you."

"Why?" Tom demanded, drawing rather close, although from this seat she looked down at him.

To rectify this unforeseen error, Luna dropped to the floor again and remained standing. "Because you find out soon enough anyway. Quite soon, in fact."

Tom looked dissatisfied but said nothing. He only stared.

A thought occurred to Luna. "Dear me!" she cried suddenly. "You've got a soulwig!"

"A what?" Tom asked, slightly alarmed.

Luna placed her hands gently on his shoulders. "A soulwig. It's a parasite that can latch onto your soul and chop it up into pieces. It can't be removed because it stops you from telling anyone that you're hurting until you're too hurt to want it gone."

Tom gazed at Luna, uncertain. "That doesn't sound real."

"It's one of the more abstract of magical creatures," Luna said breathily. "Most deny that it exists. But I believe. I think you have one." Tears started to form in her eyes, and she hugged the boy again.

This time, he shoved her off, displeased. "Stop that! There's nothing wrong with me!"

He had been a bit rough, and Luna's hip hit the corner of his desk. That would bruise. "It's fine if you don't believe me, though," she said quietly, almost to herself. "Most people don't." Somehow, she seemed to have forgotten that she was in the room with Voldemort, and was instead entranced by the less relevant aspects of the situation: How fascinating it was that she was doomed to never be believed and Riddle was doomed to never be fixed. This whole concept of saving him was doomed from the start, and here she stood, barefoot in an orphan's bedroom about forty years before her birth... "That's a pretty rock," she mused, picking up a stone from the top of Riddle's desk and turning it over in her fingers.

She did not notice that Riddle was staring at her again, with the same greedy look as before. His gaze took in the way her head angled and how she stood with her legs crossed, her toes fluttering listlessly against the floor, and how the lazy light of the late sun had her faintly outlined before him, and it didn't occur to him that her first appearance in his room could have been an accident of any sort. Because she was his new secret friend. His very own.

Then she set the rock down, gently, as though trying to avoid waking it, and her eyes met his. "Have you ever hurt anybody, Tom?" she asked curiously.

He grinned a bit at the question, which was not encouraging. "I can make bad things happen," he said confidentially, "to people who were mean to me. I can make people hurt, if I want."

Luna took this response in stride, but then he continued:

"Can you do that?"

"I've never tried," she said calmly. "I think it hurts people more to know that they'd deserve it if they were hurt than it does to hurt them." Perhaps this wasn't the most ethical concept to circulate, but it was how she felt. "I think that people who should be hurt are already hurting more than they hurt others."

Tom neither followed her logic, nor agreed with it, but he decided against calling her mad. "You will visit me more, won't you?"

"Yes," Luna answered. "If you'd like."

"I would," Tom said. "But don't leave yet." For a very brief moment, he eyed the blue box that now occupied the corner of his room as though he'd like to set it on fire, for threatening to end Luna's visit.

"I won't," Luna replied.

"I want to see your magic," Tom said with relish.

"You've already seen it."

"I want to see it again. Does it come out of your hands, or do you do it with your mind?"

At that moment, the Doctor popped out of the TARDIS door. "Time to be off, Lovegood!"

"I'll be back soon! I promise!" Luna said to Tom before he could protest. The glare he was levelling on the Doctor was nothing short of dark.


	12. Tom's Sixth Year

"One more," Luna said immediately after the door was shut. "While we have the time. Let's see him again, at least once."

"Did he hurt you?" the Doctor asked.

"The desk did, a bit," Luna replied. "Just here..." She pointed to her hip.

"One more Riddle visit," the Doctor sighed, simply frolicking with nervous energy. "For today. And I'm simply stunned that you weren't made a Gryffindor."

"I'm not brave," Luna said. "Not really. Although I suppose what I'm doing wouldn't be counted terribly clever..."

"Clever. Perhaps not. But you chose the peaceful way. Instead of killing him while he's powerless, you want to reform him."

"Killing him while he's powerless seems a Slytherin's path, doesn't it?"

"You'd be surprised. Slytherins and Gryffindors aren't so different, when all's said and done." The Doctor looked sad and wistful and farther away than normal. "Bravery can make one ambitious, and ambition can make one brave."

Luna tilted her head. "But cleverness can do the same."

The Doctor grinned. "I like you." He sprinted to the TARDIS console.

While he worked, Luna wandered down the TARDIS hallway until she found herself in front of a familiar door. She opened it to find the TARDIS's labyrinthine library. Led by what she could only assume was the TARDIS's willpower, Luna followed an intangible path and found herself in front of a shelf housing many brightly-colored books.

One specific book cover caught her eye, and though she couldn't quite make out the title, she reached for the book.

A hand yanked her round, and she was face-to-rabbity-face with the Doctor, who looked alarmed. "Lovegood! What are you doing here? What have I told you about wandering off?"

"Have you told me something about wandering off?" Luna asked interestedly. "I don't remember that."

"Hasn't anybody ever told you not to read books from a time traveller's library?" the Doctor looked exasperated.

For once, a look of penitence fell across Luna's features. "Yes. I'm sorry."

The Doctor was a bit startled by this turn of events, but he plowed on, "Right. Well, see that it doesn't happen again." As he steered her out of the library, he let out an imperceptible sigh of relief that he had stopped her before she managed to grab hold of the fifth Harry Potter book. He couldn't imagine why she would be led to that specific shelf.

They arrived at the TARDIS's exit, and he turned to give Luna her usual briefing. "Alright. We're farther along in Tom's timeline, now, but it is possible that we've crisscrossed ourselves and he's seen us more than we've seen him. Try not to volunteer new information until you've gaged how much he knows."

Luna nodded. "Alright."

The Doctor threw the door open with a flourish and sauntered out into the same bedroom to see a lean young man sitting atop his desk, facing them. The Doctor staggered back, but Luna continued, awestruck, to enter the room. Tom was older by many years, now, and very, very handsome. There was a charming upturn to his lips but the same intensity in his eyes, just better-masked. He looked amused when he saw Luna and dropped down to the floor.

"Lovegood!" he acknowledged, clearly pleased. "You're here. And you're so young. When's the last time you saw me?"

Luna passed the Doctor, who still stood tense and unmoving. "We just came from your childhood," she said cautiously. "Before Hogwarts. How old are you now?"

"Sixteen," Tom said lazily. "And I've seen you loads more times, now. Your aim could improve, Doctor." His dark eyes landed on the Doctor, then, with condescension but no noticeable hatred. Like a cat pinning down a small animal or insect. The corner of his mouth rose a bit. "You drive like a madman."

The Doctor finally stirred, raising his chin to better look down at Tom in wariness. "I am a madman. Did you say you're sixteen?"

Tom nodded, gazing at the Doctor as though trying to unweave the riddles that composed him. "And you always seem to know so much." With that cryptic remark, he waved a dismissive hand. "I presume you know the drill, now, Doctor. You can go."

The Doctor looked much more reluctant this go. "Think I'll stay, if that's alright."

"What? You think I'll hex her? You don't know me yet, the way I know you, but you ought to know that I won't do that."

"Leave me your wand, then," the Doctor said without missing a beat.

Tom's eyes narrowed, but he pulled his wand out with a hand of slender fingers and set it on the floor for the Doctor to pick up. The Doctor took it and disappeared into the TARDIS. And this time, the TARDIS did leave.

"Sit," said Tom, gesturing at the bed and beginning to pace the room.

"Is it...after your sixth year, or before?" Luna asked, seating herself where he had indicated.

"After," Tom said absentmindedly. He seemed to be deciding something. "What's that first thing you said that I have?" he asked, a bit of amusement touching his voice again. "The first of your strange creatures that I ever heard of?"

"A soulwig," Luna said. "You didn't like it very much."

"A soulwig," Tom repeated. "And that's supposed to...prevent me from confiding in people?"

"Yes," Luna confirmed, frowning a bit and wondering if he was about to make fun of her.

"I'm about to confide in you." Tom pulled his desk chair so that he was able to sit across from her. His eyes were so intense, simply daring her to judge him.

"Alright," Luna said, unfazed. Quite the contrary: she met his gaze with intrigue.

"I killed someone this year," he said. "A Mudblood. Are you upset with me?"

Every word in that sentence slammed into Luna's mind with nothing to soften the blows. _So I fail, then,_ she thought. _I'm going to see Tom Riddle throughout his life, and I'm going to try to make him better, and I'm going to fail._ Her eyes started to burn, and she looked past Tom, at his desk, and she wondered where the pretty rock had gone.

"Why did you kill the person?" the Ravenclaw in her asked.

"I opened the Chamber of Secrets," Tom said slowly. "I set a Basilisk on her."

"I didn't ask 'how'," Luna pointed out thinly. "I asked 'why'." A tear spilled over, and Tom caught it with a finger.

"Have I disappointed you, Lovegood?" he asked.

Luna shook her head. "You've grown to be yourself," Luna said. "It's me I'm disappointed in."

"Because you went back in time to _fix_ me," he said, with just a trace of venom in his assessment, as he caught another tear.

So he would find out. Maybe that was why it wouldn't work.

Luna looked at his blurry form. "I'm not a mechanic," she said, still sounding so clear even though she was crying. "Or a doctor."

Tom laughed a bit. "If it's any compensation," he said, "you have changed something: you've made it so I'm not alone."

 _I'm about to confide in you._ That was what he had said. If she couldn't fix Voldemort, there were things that she could do. She could try to decrease the damage. "You can confide in me," she said aloud.

Tom's response was cut short by the TARDIS reappearing.

"I forgot how short our meetings were back then," he said with a wry smile.

"I'll see you," Luna said.

"I know," Tom replied almost cockily.

Luna rose to leave, but Tom caught hold of her wrist before she was within reach of the TARDIS. "Take this," he said, handing her a bundle of paper. "Write in it if you ever need me."

 _Need you?_ Luna thought, having honestly not considered that their relationship might go two ways. "Thanks, Tom," she said uncertainly.

Tom nodded. "If you have it, I should be able to protect you. Keep it with you."

Luna nodded.

"And send the Doctor out with my wand," Tom added, sounding more irritated.

...

"He said that?" the Doctor said, stunned.

"Yes," Luna replied calmly.

"Tom Riddle, Lord Voldemort, the bloke who sees interpersonal connections as a weakness, that bloke, said 'you made it so I'm not alone'?"

"Yes," Luna said again.

The Doctor rubbed the palm of his right hand against his forehead. "Either he's tricking you, which I wouldn't doubt for a second- sorry, Lovegood -or you've managed to change something in him."

"That was the hope, wasn't it?" Luna had the package that Tom had given her sitting on her lap, and she was surprised that the Doctor didn't seem to notice it.

The Doctor sighed. "I tried some tinkering with Voldemort's wand...even brought in Olivander. Not sure if it did anything, though. I wanted to make it so it didn't hurt people, but apparently it 'doesn't work that way'."

Serious though the topic was, Luna couldn't help but find the Doctor's juvenile mimic of the old, renowned wand-maker rather funny.

"We're here, by the way," the Doctor said glumly. "See you again next weekend."

Luna waved as she exited the TARDIS with her package.

Her walk to the Ravenclaw common room was fairly serene, and the riddle she was asked in order to get in wasn't terribly hard ("What occurs once in a minute, twice in a moment, and never in a thousand years?" "The letter M"). She passed a clump of boys studying and two girls playing chess and curtsied to the statue of Rowena Ravenclaw, just to be polite, before at last she reached the girls' dormitory.

Sitting in her bed and drawing the curtains, she unwrapped the package that Tom had given her.

As predicted, it was a book. A little black diary.


	13. Cats, Snakes, and Weed Tiaras

Mr. the Doctor did not return until after Halloween.

He landed on the Hogwarts grounds, in the area that Luna tended to occupy, one early morning and spilled out onto the grass, along with some smoke. "Sorry!" he coughed. "Bit of an error with the console. I just came back from an adventure with a giant capybara...Anyway, happy Saturday, Lovegood!"

"It's Friday," Luna answered serenely, putting aside some weeds that she had been braiding together.

"Right, so I'm a bit early..."

"It's after Halloween, but it's no trouble." Luna stood. "It's still my first year."

"After Halloween...So, anything strange happen to Filch's cat?"

"Not that I know of. And I do like to make it my business to know about the castle's animal guardian population, so I'd say Mrs. Norris has been rather ordinary. Ronald Weasley's rat is very strange, though. I don't think he's really a rat at all."

The Doctor reeled from this information. "Mrs. Norris is fine?"

"She hasn't been limping, and she still likes being scratched behind the neck. I don't think anybody's kicked her or anything. Why do you ask?"

The Doctor blinked. "Have you met Ginny Weasley?"

"Of course. She's very nice, but she is very shy, too. She's why I know who Ronald Weasley is. And the rat."

"Enough on the rat," the Doctor said a bit firmly. "Has Ginny seemed...strange, recently?"

"No," Luna said, frowning a bit. "We live near each other, and I don't think she acts much differently than she normally does. She does get easily embarrassed around Harry Potter, though."

"Nothing else?" the Doctor insisted.

Luna shook her head.

"Something's changed, then," the Doctor said, pacing.

"Positively?" Luna asked.

"It seems so, but I'm not sure yet." The Doctor turned and wordlessly entered the TARDIS, leaving the door open for Luna to follow him.

"Are we going to see Tom?" Luna asked him, touching her pocket, where the diary still sat. She hadn't written in it, hadn't done anything but flipped through the blank pages and occasionally touched the place where it sat, as she was doing now. It felt curiously like it might burn her if she held it for too long.

"Yes. I think so." Something in the Doctor's tone made Luna feel like she was on the outside of some great secret. The feeling wasn't unpleasant, though. The Doctor always seemed to know things that she didn't. He was like Dumbledore, only older and with even more power.

Luna sat down, cross-legged, as she had in the past, and waited.

The TARDIS's almost-soothing jerky movements stilled, and the Doctor crouched in front of Luna. "There was a deleted timeline," he said at last, "where the Chamber of Secrets was opened on the Halloween that just passed. Something's changed in your timeline, and I think that it has to do with your meetings with Tom Riddle."

Luna felt herself hoping and wondered if it would be smart to put a stop to it, but she decided that it was better to feel violently than to prevent herself from feeling at all. So she hoped.

"I don't know how," the Doctor said gravely, "but this timeline has been altered so that he opens the Chamber once and either doesn't open it again or waits much longer." His gaze shifted. "Still barefoot, Lovegood?"

"I suspect nargles," Luna said without conviction. Nargles were most active in the springtime, and anyway, Hogwarts should be warded against such creatures. But there was still a chance that it was them stealing her shoes.

"Let's see Tom," the Doctor said with a strange gentleness.

They stepped out of the TARDIS.

Tom, young and glaring, stood waiting for them at the door. "Why didn't you tell me there was a wizard school?" he demanded.

"How long has it been?" Luna asked.

"Lovegood, stand back," the Doctor ordered almost at the same time. He had taken a defensive stance in front of her, nearly bumping her back into the TARDIS. He held his sonic screwdriver like a wizard might hold a wand, which was curious.

"It's been a month since you said you'd be back," Tom said accusingly. "In that time, a man called Dumbledore came to tell me I'm a wizard. And he set my wardrobe on fire." He glared from the Doctor to Luna, and somehow he managed to make each glare different. His glare for the Doctor was one of distrust, whereas his glare for Luna looked more like a parent who was disappointed in his child. "So. Are you wizards, as well? Why did you see me early?"

At the same time, Luna and the Doctor came to the decision to never tell Tom Riddle that they had met him by accident.

"Lovegood's a witch," the Doctor said. "I'm a time traveller. She couldn't come to see you without my help. This box is my time machine. And we came to see you because the future required us to. There's a timeline in which good and evil come into conflict, and good wins, but the cost is many lives. Lives that we'd like to save. Including yours."

"I die, in the future?"

"Everyone dies eventually, Tom."

Tom scowled.

"It's like sleep, after a long day," the Doctor continued.

"And you'd know?" Tom challenged.

"Oh, sure. I've died loads of times," the Doctor said with his usual playful grin. "Anyway, we've already changed that timeline a bit, but the goal is to change it completely."

Tom turned his head slightly. "And that box of yours. It's bigger on the inside. That's magic as well?"

"More like a pocket universe, but sure, if it helps."

"You can go, now," Tom said stiffly. "I want to speak to Luna."

The Doctor's smile fell. "Sure. I'll be here, then, Lovegood." As he had before, he slipped into the TARDIS but kept it parked.

"Let me see your wand," Tom ordered.

"You'll get your own before school," Luna said.

"I want to see yours."

Cautiously, Luna took out her wand. The familiar greedy look entered Tom's eyes, and she put the wand back hastily. "It has unicorn hair. I was pleased; I love unicorns."

"And you're from my future. That means, really, I'm older."

Luna nodded.

"How do I die?"

"I can't tell you that," Luna replied. "Spoilers. It's against the rules."

"Why not?"

"The Doctor says that if I tell you, it becomes fixed and we won't be able to change it."

"But he already fixed it so I die?"

"Everybody dies. You'd have eventually died anyway."

"Not with magic. I'm going to get a lot of magic, and I'm not going to die." For the first time, something in Tom's eyes legitimately scared her. It wasn't a self-preservation fear, though.

"Living forever would get awfully boring," Luna pointed out pensively. Her hands instinctively found the pretty rock on his desk.

"I'd keep you alive, as well," Tom said dismissively.

Luna frowned, finding this comment, and the of course I would tone of his voice oddly thoughtful, in its way. And perhaps a bit comforting, again, in its way. "Are you sad here?" she asked him, rather off-topic. "You seem so unhappy."

When Tom simply stared at her and didn't answer, Luna took the tiara of weeds that she had been weaving and placed it on his head.

"There," she said, satisfied. "It'll keep the bad thoughts away."

"Is there a spell on it?" Tom asked, standing still, as if he thought bees might attack him if he moved.

"No," Luna answered simply.

"They'll think I'm mad if I turn up at dinner wearing this." Still, he didn't take it off.

Suddenly, the TARDIS began to vanish.

"I wonder where he's going," Luna said. "Maybe he forgot we were here..."

Tom, to say the least, did not look sorry about this turn of events. "Want to go somewhere?" he asked eagerly.

"Are you allowed?" Luna asked.

"Sure." It was an obvious lie, but Luna decided she didn't mind.

With the slightest movement of her hand to confirm that her wand was still in place, Luna nodded. "Sure."

...

Tom seemed surprised that Luna, smaller though she was, was able to keep pace with his sprinting. They had exited his room through the window, and now they dashed over hills and across roads, up to a strange, dark cave.

It looks like a place where people are murdered, Luna thought curiously. It even smells a bit like dead things.

But Tom led Luna to a grassy area not far from the cave. With a firm grip on her hand, which felt increasingly like a leash, Tom dragged her into the deepest grass and then sat down, pulling her down as well. The grass was over their heads.

Tom released her hand, then, and closed his eyes, looking rather peaceful, for practically the first time. His lips still moved, however, framing nonsensical words and little hissing sounds. Then he quieted.

"It's nice here," Luna observed, looking up at the stars. Tom had mentioned dinner earlier...he was probably missing it now...and he hadn't removed his weed tiara.

Luna felt a tickle along her spine. Then again, at her wrist. She looked down and saw that a large snake was curling itself around her arm. And another worked its way over her shoulder. And another slid up her ankle and spiraled around her calf. Luna went still, her eyes even wider than they normally were, and she looked at Tom, who was positively blanketed in snakes and seemed pleased about it.

"I can speak to snakes," he boasted. "Snakes love me. Can you do that?"

Luna shook her head. "I wish I could," she managed. "I'm sure snakes would have interesting things to say."

"They're more interested in me than I am in them," Tom replied. "Like servants."

"I would make friends with snakes, if I could speak to them," Luna said, not judgementally.

"You haven't spoken to them," Tom said simply. "They get boring. But so do people."

A snake curled all the way around Luna's neck. She wasn't sure if Tom had told it to do so. Either way, she leaned back, giving the snakes full rein over her. They looped around her midriff, her legs, her head, but the one around her neck didn't tighten or constrict her. They like me, Luna thought, almost laughing because every movement tickled.

When the snakes stilled, she sat up to face Tom, who had her wand pointed at her. There was even a bit of light at the end of it.

"Are you afraid?" Tom asked her, keeping the wand aimed directly at her heart.

Luna thought it over. "No," she answered.

Tom edged the wand closer, holding it under her chin. "Why not?" he asked calmly.

"Because the worst thing you can do to me is kill me," she answered simply. "And, now that I think about it, I don't expect you to do that." She thought again. "I suppose you could take my memory, but there's no benefit to you there. And you could have the snakes hurt or kill me, if you want me hurt or killed. Really, I'm at your mercy from every angle. And I don't mind that."

Tom smiled. "You don't seem to think that I'm a good person now. You want me to believe that I'm a good person in the future?"

"I don't think there are good people or evil people," Luna answered.

"There is no good and evil," Tom said. "They're made up. There's only who can do what to whom."

"That was very good grammar," Luna said with a slight smile. "I don't agree, though."

"With what?"

"Some things can be called evil. People can't, but actions can."

"And what actions do I commit in the future?"

"I can't tell you that."

Every snake that had wound itself around her hissed simultaneously, in an unmistakably threatening way.

"The worst you can do, I don't fear," Luna reminded Tom. "Anyway, you don't want someone to talk to? In your timeline, I don't exist yet. I haven't been born. My parents aren't old enough for Hogwarts yet. I'm like an imaginary friend."

"Only you don't show up whenever I want," Tom mused. "...I could keep you here."

The snakes around Luna's wrists and ankles tightened their loops.

"Then you'd have to explain why someone who doesn't exist is coming with you to Hogwarts," Luna mused along with him. "But I suppose it's your choice. It's not as though I can make you decide one way or the other."

Tom moved closer to her, so that they were hip to hip, but facing opposite directions. He smelled like soap, and she like grass and wet flowers, and both were covered in snakes. He ran a hand through her long hair, and she couldn't see his facial expression because he sat in the shadows. He could see her face rather well.

All of a sudden, he withdrew his hand and set her wand on her lap. "Let's go back," he said.

...

They were soaking wet from rain and lake water when they returned to Tom's bedroom, and the TARDIS still hadn't reappeared.

Luna was exhausted, and Tom directed her to his bed, not allowing room for protest, while he sat in his desk chair. "How old are you, Luna Lovegood?" he asked.

"Eleven," Luna answered, rather impressed that, after not having spoken it for so long, Tom still remembered her full name.

"So am I," he said. "So, you're in your first year of Hogwarts?"

"Yes."

"What's it like?"

"Spoilers," she whispered, burrowing deeper into his pillow and closing her eyes.

"Is it big?" Tom persisted. "Are there loads of people?"

"Mmm..." Luna hummed noncommittally, already drifting off.

Tom sighed, and that was the last thing she heard.

...

And then the high whine of Mr. the Doctor was waking her up.

"Oy! Couldn't wait a few hours?" He shook the mattress, jostling both Luna and Tom, who had, at some point, donned pajamas and occupied the other end of the bed.

"Where did you go?" Luna asked dazedly.

"Had a certain...thing...to correct, just thought of it, but anyway, I'm back now. It's still today, isn't it?"

"It's tonight, now," Luna answered.

"Ah well...Few hours. Anyway, we're off."

Luna climbed out of bed to follow the Doctor into the TARDIS. "I'll see you, Tom."

"I'm going to King's Cross today," he told her urgently. "Will you come to see me while I'm at Hogwarts?"

"I'll try," she said sincerely. "Of course I'll try."

Then she disappeared again, only hesitating to make sure that she still had her wand and the little black book.

Tom was still wearing the tiara of weeds.


	14. Snake Charming and Bad Driving

"Alright," the Doctor said, "since we're making up for lost time- and I am truly sorry about that -let's head to Hogwarts. Tom's Hogwarts, that is." He yanked theatrically at a lever.

"Hm..." Luna hummed in thought. "How will we find him there?"

"Oh, I borrowed the Marauder's Map from A. S. Potter in the distant future," the Doctor replied offhandedly.

"What?"

"What?" The Doctor grinned. "My point is, we'll find him. And I'm simply amazed at how brilliant you are."

"About what?" Luna asked.

"You had Voldemort resting beside you like a tamed viper. You know, he doesn't devote himself to other people easily. He's a bit of a lone wolf, as they say."

The TARDIS landed.

"Here we are!" the Doctor exclaimed, beginning to unfold a gigantic sheet of paper. "And Tom is...drat. The thing doesn't work in a time-neutral zone. We'll have to step out first."

He opened the door for Luna, and she stepped out, only to be collided-with by another child. The two of them fell to the ground in a tangle.

"Terribly sorry," the young boy was already saying. "Very sorry."

Luna sat up from her spot on the floor and looked at the boy. He was brown haired and disheveled and scarred in some parts of his face. He looked tired, but there was a certain boyish hope and wonder in his eyes. Underneath the alarm, of course.

"Hm..." She smiled, hoping to ease his worry over the mistake. "I'm alright. Are you? What's your name?"

"I'm Remus Lupin," the boy said while helping Luna to her feet. "I've got to go. My friends-" And he took off without finishing.

The Doctor had smacked himself in the forehead. "I am a bad driver," he said, as though this had just dawned on him. "Back in the TARDIS, quick."

"We have time, don't we?" Luna pointed out.

"You can't just dodder about through wizarding history making friends with random people," the Doctor protested.

"I could, though, couldn't I?" Luna said with her dreamy smile. "You said I'm part impossible."

"That! Was in a different context!" the Doctor said, dragging Luna into the TARDIS and closing the door. "Let's be off, before we're hexed."

"Remus seemed lonely," Luna mused.

"He has friends," the Doctor said. "Good friends. Brilliant friends. But...Yes. He will be lonely. He will be very lonely...in the future. It doesn't last long though." The Doctor seemed suddenly as old as he was. "If you fix Voldemort, Lovegood, you will help Remus, as well. You'll save his friends and his life. Already you've done so much."

"I want to see Tom," Luna assured the Doctor. "Of course I do. But there are other things in time and space. I'm only saying we have time in a bottle here. In a box."

The Doctor smiled wearily. "That we do. Now, to Tom."

...

Luna and Tom spent the whole day in the Astronomy Tower with the TARDIS while the Doctor roamed the school.

"You're a Ravenclaw, are you?" Tom said.

"Yes," Luna answered.

"I thought so. Are you a pureblood?"

"Yes." It was true; impossible though Clara Oswald Lovegood had been, she was a witch, most definitely. "Not that that matters much," Luna added.

"You shouldn't sit there," Tom said. "You might fall."

Luna sat perched on a balcony overlooking the whole of the castle and the sunlight on the lake. She smiled slightly, a quirky smile. "If I fall, you'll just tell Mr. the Doctor, and he'll catch me."

"He might not have time," Tom said.

"He always has time, Tom," Luna reminded him.

Tom seemed to think about this for a moment, as he went quiet. Then: "Are you still eleven?"

"Yes," Luna answered. "A few months into my first year, and the last time I saw you was the day before you left for King's Cross. How about you?"

"It's February, for me," he said. "And I saw you last on Christmas Day, and before that a week before Halloween. You aren't coming very often."

Luna slid down from the balcony railing at last and padded over to Tom. "Do the other Slytherins tease you for being a half-blood?" she asked.

Tom did not expect this question. He blinked, then looked irritated, then cleared his countenance. "At first they tried. They've since learned not to."

Luna angled her head, her wide eyes searching Tom's dark ones. "You haven't been hurting people, have you?"

"You'd know what I've been doing, if you visited more."

"That isn't really an answer."

Tom glanced down at Luna's feet. "Why don't you wear shoes, Luna?"

It was now Luna's turn to receive a question she was unprepared for. She smiled dazedly. "Creatures called nargles have stolen them from under my bed."

The dark eyes narrowed. "You're lying," Tom observed.

"I might not be," Luna disagreed. "Nargles may be unseasonal, but it's possible." Then her eyes went all distant. "All the same, my shoes seem to have disappeared. They'll turn up eventually." She sat down on the floor.

"Why'd you lie?" Tom asked.

"Because I like to think the best of people," Luna answered while flicking her wand idly in front of her to create colorful sparks. "Better that than assume the worst and be wrong."

"So your shoes have been stolen by some Ravenclaw girls?" Tom concluded, rather pragmatically. He sat down on the floor, as well. "You know, if you took me to your time, I could make it so they never bother you again."

Luna looked at him askance. "If I took you to my time," she said, "you could make a great many things happen, I'm sure."

Tom grinned cheekily. "How can you expect me to improve the future if I'm never allowed to see it?" he asked. "Think how much could be learned."

"That's what your time at Hogwarts is for, isn't it?" Luna asked. "Learning? Haven't you got homework?"

"I've finished it," Tom said dismissively. Then, his eyes widened a bit. "If you're only a few months into your year, that means I know more magic than you do right now."

Luna thought this over, then nodded, only a little perturbed. "That's true."

Tom smirked. "Slughorn says I'm advanced. Loads of other teachers, too. They say I'm a magical prodigy."

"That's nice," Luna replied.

"Are you proud?"

"Yes," Luna said, angling her head again because she found herself curious about Tom's forthcoming behavior. All that she knew about Voldemort indicated that, by all rights, he should be pushing her away right now instead of drawing her closer. Then again, it was probable that he saw her as a possession at most, a tool at least. She was his bridge to the future. It only made sense that he become close to her. But what was this need for approval? Was he ensuring that her opinion of him was at the right level that she could be used?

This was a good theory, although trying to fit it in with Sixteen-Year-Old-Tom's actions would require more thought.

"There are things you could learn from me," Tom added.

"I'm sure," said Luna.

Tom stood, taking out his wand and starting to pace. "It's fantastic," he said. "I've always been able to do things, but my wand makes it so powerful."

Luna nodded along as though his words were some odd sort of song whose beat she found interesting.

"How about you?" Tom asked. "I know you've got magic, but are you any good?"

"Nearly top marks, if that's what you're asking," Luna answered in a borderline-singsong voice.

"But are you any good, though?" Tom persisted. "Top marks are easy. Could you duel me, though?"

Luna started stretching out her body gracefully. "I don't think so, Tom."

"You could try."

"I won't, though."

Tom grinned again. "Sure you will."

"Why's that?" Luna asked, freezing mid-stretch to fix a curious look on the boy across the room.

"Because..." He pointed his wand at the TARDIS door. "Alohamora," he said, and the door swung open. Before Luna could do much more then look stunned by the turn of events, Tom Riddle had sprinted through the doorway, into the TARDIS.


	15. Joyride

"Tom!" Luna called, scampering after him into the blue box.

"It's gigantic in here," the boy said gleefully. There was a dark hunger in his eyes, and he hovered at the TARDIS console like it was a Hogwarts feast. Without looking away, he sent a spell shooting over Luna's shoulder, closing the TARDIS door behind her.

"Stop," Luna protested.

"Stop me," Tom said, jamming a button and sending the TARDIS lurching.

Luna gripped a railing and was irritated to feel her wand slipping from behind her ear, dropping to the floor, and rolling away. She followed it at a crawl. "You don't know how to drive," she reminded Tom from her spot on the floor.

He appeared not to hear her; he continued messing about the console, a pensive, focused look on his face.

Luna found her wand and immediately wished that she knew actual combat spells. She knew more than many her age, especially since she read books that were not written by Gilderoy Lockhart, the secret Belgian shape-shifting Quidditch-playing spy, but she had focused more on constructive types of magic: healing spells and confusing spells, mostly. One spell to give someone the feeling of having water in their ears, although she hadn't had the opportunity to practice that one on a real person.

She opted for a simpler alternative:

"Impedimenta!" she shouted, sending a jet of light at Tom.

With a wave of his wand, he deflected the beam and kept playing at the TARDIS console.

Luna blinked. Twice, now, he had cast a spell without saying anything out loud. That sort of magic wasn't learned by first years, not usually. Had the curriculums changed so much over the decades?

The TARDIS lunged almost completely sideways, knocking both Luna and Tom off of their feet and disrupting Luna's train of thought.

"You've annoyed her!" she called to Tom.

"Who?" Tom asked.

"The TARDIS!" Luna answered. "She doesn't like being ordered about like that! You've got to be kind!"

Luna did not see what Tom did next; she only heard him moving around and felt the TARDIS steady out several moments later.

"There," Tom sighed, sounding pleased with herself.

"What happened?" Luna asked in a small voice; she was feeling slightly nauseous.

"I eased her worries," Tom said smugly. He offered a hand to Luna and helped her to her feet.

"You spoke to her?" Luna queried, frowning a bit.

"She's very forthcoming, if you know what to say," Tom boasted.

"She spoke back?"

"Not in so many words. It was very...mental."

Luna was somewhat unnerved, now. She had not thought of the TARDIS as an entity that could be won over by words from Tom Riddle. What on earth could he have done? Was the TARDIS planning something?

Suddenly, Tom slipped the wand out of Luna's hand, holding it in the same hand that held his own. "And it seems I won the duel, if you can call it that."

"You lied, didn't you?" Luna sighed. "About still being a first year."

"It was a lie," Tom agreed affably. "It made you feel safe, though, didn't it?"

"I never feel safe around you, Tom," she said, as matter-of-factly as one might state that they never put salt on their salads.

"Why not?" Tom asked. Despite his words, he seemed pleased with her response.

"Because I know you might kill me," Luna answered, then hummed serenely. "I'm not scared of you," she added as an afterthought.

"You know I might kill you, but you're not scared?" Tom repeated. He chuckled: "You're mad, then."

"Loony," Luna corrected him half-heartedly. "Loony Lovegood." She smiled. "Are you frightened, Tom?" she asked, almost brightly.

"No. Of what?" he asked.

"The fact that I'm someone you can't frighten."

Tom was not frightened. Quite the contrary; the look in Lovegood's eyes entranced him nearly as much as the TARDIS had moments ago. She had a look as if she had already met her nightmares, if that made sense. It was an enigmatic sort of look, not oblivious to the horrors of the world but immunized to them. It was fascinating, especially seeing as Lovegood was a person who he owned. "Coincidentally, you'll find it difficult to frighten me, Lovegood."

"What year are you, really?"

"Second year," he said.

She took her wand back from him.

She simply...reached over and drew it from his grip.

Tom was vaguely stunned by this turn of events. Had he been so distracted that he did not even think to stop her? Even with her wand, she was no threat to him, but all the same.

"Let's go back to Hogwarts, Tom," Luna suggested. She had a way of singing her words that made Tom actually like his name. Somehow, she framed it in an appealing way, so much so that he considered making her say it again. He wanted her to keep saying it.

However, now was the time for showing off:

"We're at Hogwarts," he said with a wide smile. He gestured at the TARDIS door. "Take a look."

Luna looked faintly wary, but she pranced up to the door in little hop-steps and opened it.


	16. Tales from the Hospital Wing

The Doctor was loaded down with magical books and Honeydukes candy when he returned to the Astronomy tower to find the TARDIS missing. "Oy! Lovegood, time to go! I've just returned from the Restricted Section and I-" He noticed the emptiness of the space before him. Immediately, he let his bounty fall to the floor and commenced to pacing the room in long, gliding steps, wielding his sonic screwdriver like...well, like a madman.

Then, he let loose a rapid-fire string of Gallifreyan vulgarities. Riddle missing. Lovegood missing. TARDIS missing.

The Doctor, at last, stilled, his expression stony in such a way that anyone with so much as a casual knowledge of his reputation would have been sent running by the sight of it. Riddle. If you've done anything to either of them, you're going to want to hide.

...

Riddle had not lied; they were, in fact, at Hogwarts. Or, more accurately, they were over Hogwarts. Higher, even, than thestrals normally flew, so that all of the castle (and some of the grounds) was visible to Luna.

"When are we, Tom?" Luna asked dazedly, running the tip of her wand over her lips the way she sometimes did when deep in thought. She was not in the ideal situation here.

"A few decades in my future," Tom answered with a slight smirk. "Are you going to stand right at the edge like that? I might push you off."

"I'm not afraid of heights, Tom. When are we?"

"I've just told you."

"And I suppose you won't be any more specific. I expected as much. Will you bring us back?"

"I don't think so," Tom said breezily.

"Hm," Luna sighed. Then, she whipped around, pointed her wand, and shouted, "Rictusempra!"

Tom was apparently not prepared for this one; he staggered back, contorting his body in discomfort and giggling at the sudden sensation of being tickled. It only took him a moment to recover, but in that moment, Luna raced past him to the TARDIS controls.

"Oh my..." Luna breathed, for once horrified good and proper. The TARDIS's controls were swirling with darkness and bitingly cold to the touch. "Tom, what have you done?"

A spell hit Luna squarely in the chest, and she fell to the ground, feeling as though she had lost more than half of her energy; now, all she wanted was to lie down.

"I win again," Tom said. "You're rubbish at dueling, Lovegood."

Luna was not interested in arguing that she was only in her first year, and not even well into her first year, at that. She instead repeated, a bit faintly, "What have you done to the TARDIS, Tom?"

"At the moment," said Tom, and he eased at one of the TARDIS's levers, "I am attempting to park it."

"You can't enter Hogwarts, Tom. You'll be recognized by someone...by Dumbledore. Meddling with time's illegal, you know."

"Oh, I'll get in. At the very least, I'll have to get you to the Hospital Wing before that hex takes full effect."

Luna tried to sit up, but the vertigo overtook her, and she passed out.

...

When Luna awoke, she was indeed lying in a bed in the Hogwarts Hospital Wing. The room was dark and full of the sound of sleeping...and whispering.

"James?" a boy's voice was saying. "What are you doing in here?"

"Well, you've hardly got a monopoly on the Hospital Wing, Moony. I'm allowed in, too."

"Yes, but what happened to you?"

"I was out flying and..." The boy paused, then went on cautiously, "Something distracted me."

"Was that something female?" the boy called Moony asked dryly.

"No," James protested. "There was this blue box hanging in the sky."

"A blue box?"

"Yeah. I nearly flew right into it; appeared out of nowhere, it did. Could've flattened me."

"Things don't just appear in the sky over Hogwarts, James."

"Well-contributed, Moony. I had no idea."

There was the sound of something smacking James.

"Ow! I'm just saying, it did appear. I know it's strange."

"Did you tell someone?"

"I might've mentioned it to Padfoot, before I blacked out. Really, Remus, I've been a bit busy."

As the conversation progressed, Luna quietly (and dizzily) rose from her cot and neared the two boys. They caught sight of her once she stood at the foot of Remus's bed.

"Can we help you?" James asked defensively.

"Just making sure you're real," Luna said dreamily. "One can never be sure, with voices in the dark. You might have been some breed of night terrors."

"Night terror?" James repeated. "Moony's a right terror."

"And James is a night error," Remus returned calmly.

Luna smiled. Her good mood faded, however, when she remembered that Riddle was now displaced into a period of time that might just know his name. Not his real name, of course; almost no one knew his real name. All the same...

"Who are you?" Remus asked her.

"Luna Lovegood," Luna replied.

"What year, what House?" James asked.

"Ravenclaw. The year's a bit wonky, though..."

"Wonky?" James repeated incredulously. "It's numbered one through seven! Which are you?"

At that moment, Luna's head swam, and she crumpled to the ground.

With muffled exclamations, James and Remus clambered from their beds and helped her to her feet.

"Are you alright?" Remus asked.

"Rather dizzy," Luna said unsteadily. "Got hit by a hex, and I'm not sure what kind...I might have over-estimated my strength."

"Which bed's yours?" James asked.

"I'll get Madame Pomfrey," Remus added.

Honestly, the boys' vigilance was an asset, because Luna was already sinking back into unconsciousness. All she could repeat as she did so was: "Where's Tom? Where's he gone? Where's Tom?"

...

When Luna woke once more, it was to a significantly-younger-than-Luna-was-used-to Madame Pomfrey spoon-feeding her some sort of potion that was nearly as thick as porridge. "There you are," the woman said. "You'll be needing another dose in three hours."

"Thank you, Madame Pomfrey," said a familiar voice at Luna's bedside; Tom had returned, only he seemed to have altered his appearance somewhat; Luna still recognized him and saw little difference, but a part of her was also aware that there was a spell warping his looks for others.

"Do not excite the patient too much," the matron said sternly. "She's already pale as a sheet."

Once they were alone- and truly alone, Luna noticed; the Hospital Wing was completely empty, apart from them -Tom relaxed back in his seat.

"Where's the TARDIS?" Luna asked him hoarsely.

"Parked it somewhere nobody will find it," Tom said.

"Is it in the Forest?" Luna asked.

"Yes," Tom said. "In a place only I know."

"In all the years Hogwarts has existed, you think there is such a place?"

"Yes," Tom replied obstinately.

"Well, you would know best, Tom."

"It's Taurus," Tom said. "While we're here, call me Taurus Black."

"You don't think the Blacks will notice you're not a relative of theirs?" Luna asked.

"I've said I'm from Albania."

"So you do finally get to join an old pureblood family," Luna observed lightly. "Does that make you happy, Tom? Er, Taurus."

Tom only scowled, upset that she had brought his blood status up. He, by now, knew well enough that Luna was not prone to filtering herself nearly enough before speaking, but that did not condone her audacity.

Luna closed her eyes for a second as her head throbbed. "You hexed me," she recalled.

"You tickled me," Tom returned. "Anyway, we had to get into the school somehow."

"And where have you been?" Luna asked, opening her eyes again. When she opened her eyes, it was always a bit like car headlights turning on.

"The library," Tom replied. "Reading up on 'Tom Riddle'."

"I assume you found nothing?" Luna deduced, drawing her knees to her chest quaintly.

"Oh, I found loads," Tom said, and there was a dark mania behind his eyes. "Turns out, I didn't even have to read anything; I could have asked anybody in the school. They all know the name 'Tom Riddle'."

Luna frowned. This was not how time was supposed to go. Had the timelines been altered so much that Tom never concocted his pseudonym? "What do the books say?" she asked.

"Apparently..." Tom began, still with that mildly disconcerting (and, were anyone besides Luna Lovegood to have seen it, far more than just mildly disconcerting) gleam in his eyes, but he was interrupted by a portly, brown-haired boy bursting into the Hospital Wing.

"James! Remus!" he shouted, then was brought up short when he saw that the boys he sought were not in the Hospital Wing.

"They've gone," Luna told him.

"Do you know where?" the boy asked, looking listless.

Tom and Luna both shook their heads, and the boy left with a partially dejected, partially determined air about him.

"Apparently," Tom continued, as though there had been no interruption, "I am a rather dark wizard." He let the words sink in for a minute before grinning a rather horrible grin. "Is that why you saw fit to go back in time and seek me out? You hoped to redeem the murderer?"

Luna only stared at him, but she could feel her heart constricting with every word he spoke.

"Oh, Lovegood," Tom sighed. "That's so you. But people don't change, you know."

"What a cynical thing to say," Luna answered, a bit high-pitched. "Or, if not cynical, very Muggle of you."

Tom was on his feet in half an instant. "What's that supposed to mean?"

"Magic is the embodiment of change, Tom. Your upbringing is showing, if you think that it's impossible to fundamentally change a person."

Tom grabbed Luna's arm hard. "And who says I'm a person, Lovegood?" he seethed through a laconic smile. "You naive little girl."

Luna only smiled, the daydreamy smile that she adopted whenever older Ravenclaw girls picked on her; she knew that it drove them crazy. "If you're not going to kill me, Tom- and I suggest you don't, considering who the Headmaster here is -you should calm yourself, I think."

"I won't spare you because of Dumbledore," Tom told her before releasing her arm. "I'll spare you because, stupid though you are, you're mine."

Luna would have shivered, and she likely would later, once she was alone in her Ravenclaw dormitory, but at the moment, she was more curious than anything else. "I'd like to think I'm my own," she mentioned offhandedly.

"I'm sure you'd like to think a lot of things," Tom said.

"You think you're the first person to insult me, Tom?" she asked, angling her head sideways. "Really, you are silly." Silly, incidentally, was not something she ever thought she would be calling Voldemort.

"Silly as a person who thinks she can just go back in time and change the heart of Thomas Marvolo Riddle?"

The sound of something being knocked over at the other end of the room startled both of them. Immediately, Tom fired a spell (wordlessly) into the empty air. The spell hit against something, and an Invisibility Cloak fell away to reveal James and Remus and another boy with overgrown, dark hair. All three of them looked flabbergasted.

Tom reeled back to fire a presumably-much-worse spell, but Luna tackled him with a hug and refused to let go until violently shoved and deposited back onto her bed. By that time, the three boys had managed to sprint to the exit and out of the Hospital Wing.

As Tom turned on Luna, she queried, with the smallest of triumphant smiles, "How much do you reckon they heard?"

Tom, for several moments, looked as though he might physically smack her. Instead, he replied, in a strained but cool voice, "Enough." Then he grabbed her arm again and dragged her from the bed. "We're getting back to the TARDIS."

Luna said nothing and simply let him drag her. There was no need, after all, to say anything; she had won and he was livid. A part of her was somewhat afraid.


	17. Eleven's Back-Up Plan

Tom dragged Luna deep into the forest (at such a speed that her headache returned with a vengeance), never lightening his grip on her arm. Luna glanced, periodically, behind them, to see if Dumbledore would come gliding in pursuit any time soon. She was not sure how she felt about the idea. Or, more accurately, she was not sure whether she was more frightened of a scenario in which Dumbledore came or one in which he did not.

Tom stopped suddenly. "It should be here..." he murmured.

"Perhaps it's invisible," Luna suggested quietly.

"It isn't invisible! It's gone!" Tom shouted. He turned to face her. "Did you do something?"

"I was hexed, Tom," Luna answered in something of a morose tone. "What could I have done?"

"Then where is it?" Tom demanded, releasing Luna's arm but tightening his grip on his wand.

"Where indeed?" a smooth voice asked.

Luna couldn't help but smile at the familiarity of the voice, and at the fact that she had never heard Mr. the Doctor sound so smooth. Usually, he was a bit like a hen, clucking around, but now, standing in the shadows of the Forbidden Forest, he looked...powerful. Like a time lord.

"How did you get here?" Tom asked the Doctor, his tone having returned to calm alarmingly quickly. Like the eye of a hurricane. Only the behavior of his jaw betrayed his frustration.

"Come on, Tom. All of the wizarding world as a resource? How did I get here? Albus Dumbledore and Nicholas Flamel and I go on vacation in Bermuda together every twenty years. I've tutored some of the most prominent minds of the wizarding community on my downtime between rendezvous with Lovegood. How d'you reckon time turners get made?" He approached Tom. "Did you really think I didn't have a back-up plan?" he asked almost menacingly.

Tom smiled, an eerie approximation of a child's grin. "Just a bit of clean fun, Doctor. Wanted to get some reading done in a different time. Are you truly cross about a young boy's curiosity?"

Without answering, the Doctor turned to look at Luna. "You said he hexed you?" He didn't wait for her reply; he already had his sonic out and scanning her.

"She only said that she was hexed," Tom sighed, exasperated.

"Some head trauma." With his ominous tone, the Doctor made it clear that he was not amused by Tom's actions in the slightest. "You ought to be in the Hospital Wing."

"I'm due another healing potion in three hours," Luna said.

"I'm taking you back," the Doctor said decisively.

"Alright. We'll have another go next weekend, then?" Luna prompted.

"No," the Doctor said firmly.

"You know that we will, Mr. the Doctor. It's already happened."

"He might have lied about that. It's not a fixed point."

"Haven't I got a choice?"

The Doctor did not answer. He now stood with his back to both Luna and Tom.

Tom took advantage of this fact and raised his wand. "You're not taking her away," he said flatly.

"Are you gonna stop me, Tom?" the Doctor asked loudly. "Hex me, and you'll never find the TARDIS. Then you're trapped here at the mercy of my good friend Albus. And when I come around again, you'll be at my mercy, too."

"I'm not frightened of you," Tom said.

"And you won't be," the Doctor said, suddenly very clinical-sounding. "Until it's too late for you. Isn't that how it goes?"

"Mr. the Doctor," Luna said, approaching him. Both the Doctor and Tom noticed the way that she always looked like she was wandering no matter how deliberately she walked somewhere. She seemed to drift from place to place. "You're upset. What's happened?"

"What else, you mean?"

"Yes."

"Nothing. Everything's fine."

Luna lowered her voice: "We have made changes, you know," she whispered. "Things have gone all...different."

"You think you've improved him?" the Doctor deadpanned.

"I don't know what I've done, but I do see that some things have changed."

The Doctor bent closer to Luna in order to gravely whisper, "He's done something to the TARDIS. Something's wrong with her. She still functions fine but she's...silent. As though the box's soul has gone into some sort of...coma." He shot a watery glare at Tom where the boy stood, several meters away. "I don't know how to fix her, because the machine itself is working fine; in all appearances, nothing is wrong, but..."

Luna nodded solemnly.

"I'm going to be spending some time in your Hogwarts," the Doctor continued. "Conferring with Albus, keeping an eye on things, seeing as I know how the timeline was meant to go."

"Alright," Luna said.

"We've got to leave now, though."

Luna nodded.

...

They deposited Tom back in his time before returning to Luna's Hogwarts.

Upon returning, Luna found herself fascinated by the mundane lives of the students in the castle; how they doddered around like time was linear and seemed so sure about what was real and what was not. She began interjecting into discussions more frequently. Periodically, she would drop the name Voldemort in conversations, but it was never recognized. The name seemed to have been erased from time.


	18. Snape's Irritation, Lockhart's Idiocy, and McGonagall's Herculean Effort

"Miss Lovegood."

Luna looked up with what one might call a "vague" expression. "Yes, Professor Snape?"

"Are you able to read?" the man asked contemptuously.

"Yes, Professor Snape!" Luna answered with much too sunny a smile. Then, frowning slightly: "Aren't you, sir?"

Professor Snape pressed his lips together into a thin line. "I am. Would you care to explain, Miss Lovegood..." (He raised his voice slightly, so that any student who had not already been listening now could not help but do so.) "...why your potion has yet to turn yellow?"

"I haven't squeezed the manticore venom out of the manticore stingers yet, professor," Luna answered clearly.

"'Yet'?" Snape repeated. "That was step three, and you have by now completed steps four, five, and seven. Would you care to explain why you saw fit to complete the steps of this potion out of order?"

Again, Luna frowned slightly. "You said the most important ingredient in the potion was time, sir. I thought that meant we could do it out of order, since time doesn't have to go in order. I expect a man of your academic stature knows that better than I, sir."

"Miss Lovegood, I have never heard such nonsense," Snape snapped.

"Really?" Luna replied, genuinely surprised. "Was that the most nonsensical thing you've ever heard? Truly?"

"Miss Lovegood, you are now disrupting class," Snape said coolly. "That will be ten points from Ravenclaw, in addition to the twenty points you've already lost for asking me if I could read moments ago."

"But you can, though, sir," Luna said lightly. "So I don't see what the trouble is."

Just as Snape was about to respond, another Ravenclaw interceded, "Don't mind her, professor! She's barmy."

Professor Snape stood still a moment before returning to his desk. Over his shoulder, he said, "That will be an additional ten points, Miss Lovegood, for subjecting all of us to this conversation for too long."

Every Ravenclaw in the room groaned, and the girl seated beside Luna kicked the chair out from under her. She hit the ground, rather painfully. There were a few snickers as Luna sat up, looking as though she had just woken from a dream. She gathered her books and papers, which has fallen with her, back into her bag.

Her hand hesitated halfway through putting away the last book. It was the diary that Tom had given her.

It occurred to her that she had yet to use it.

Having the Doctor in Hogwarts for these last few weeks had been pleasant. Every now and then, she'd see him sprinting around the building or grounds or dining in the Great Hall (sometimes with the students, sometimes with the teachers) or just sitting on a staircase, chatting with Mrs. Norris. Still, she missed Tom. In a strange way, he was like a friend to her, so much so that she kept the diary in her hands rather than putting it away.

"For your homework," Snape said to the class, "you will be composing an essay on the uses of manticore venom. That's two rolls of parchment, and I will be measuring length. You are dismissed."

The students exited with alacrity.

Luna exited last (She had long known, by now, that the safest place to be in a crowd was behind it.) and was pleased to recall that the next several hours of her day were free.

Once she had completed the long trek to the Forbidden Forest and was seated in the clearing where the thestrals liked to sleep, she opened the little book from Tom and took out her quill pen.

...

"Mr...Doctor, you are not a student!" Professor McGonagall said, her words in conflict with her no-nonsense tone. "I should not have to tell you that it is wrong to pester the ghosts!"

"Pester?" the Doctor repeated with a very childish tone of indignation. "I was only asking a few questions! It was vital to my research!"

"Sir Nicholas complained that you wouldn't stop waving your wand at him. He said it made an infernal sound."

"Sonic screwdriver," the Doctor murmured.

The old woman narrowed her eyes. "You managed to annoy Peeves, as well," Professor McGonagall pointed out, gesturing at the poltergeist who was at that moment running amuck in the room. "Peeves. Doctor, are you aware that, in all my tenure at Hogwarts, I have never known someone to genuinely irritate Peeves? The only being in this castle more irritating than Peeves is-"

"Minerva?"

Professor McGonagall sighed in exasperation as an obnoxiously attractive blond man entered her office.

"Minerva!" Gilderoy Lockhart repeated with condescending fondness. "I heard this hullabaloo and worried that you were in mortal peril."

"Well, Gilderoy, seeing as it is merely a poltergeist-"

"How fortunate you are that I have arrived! I know precisely how to rectify the situation!"

"I doubt that, Lockhart," the Doctor said. "Memory charms don't work on poltergeists, you know."

Lockhart's face fell. "What did you say?" he asked seriously.

"Nothing!" the Doctor replied, patting Lockhart on the shoulder. "Run along, boyo. The adults are talking."

McGonagall's lips twitched into what was nearly a smile for a fraction of a second. "Doctor, it is wrong to disrespect a Hogwarts professor."

"You've just finished saying I'm not a student," the Doctor replied jovially.

McGonagall actually did smile, now. "Well, then, that's the matter settled, isn't it?"

"Settled?" Lockhart repeated. "Minerva, he hasn't apologized!"

"Gilderoy, how would you have me punish him? Should I ban him from Hogsmeade? Take points away?"

The Doctor's face lit up suddenly. "That reminds me! I'm going to go play with the Sorting Hat!" And, just like that, the man was off, flailing his limbs a bit as he ran.

"For whatever reason, Albus still hasn't told me what it is that man is doing here," Lockhart noted aloofly.

"The Headmaster needn't explain himself to his professors, Gilderoy," McGonagall reminded him.

"I'm hardly just a professor, though, Minerva. Perhaps it is the curse of my keen perception, but something about this 'Doctor' seems odd."

It took herculean effort for McGonagall to refrain from responding with _Everything about him seems odd, you fool! Even the first years notice that much!_ It was true; the Doctor was popular among the students for that very reason. He had such a strong presence, such a depth, and such a bubbly disposition. He was at stark contrast, then, with Lockhart, who had a weak and shallow presence but a similarly bubbly disposition and sought the same air of mystery.

She could already tell that Potter, Granger, and Weasley were intrigued. Malfoy had probably written to his father by now, in the hopes of finding some new insight to share with his Slytherin peers.

"No matter," Lockhart said breezily. "Opportunities to deriddle him will no doubt present themselves in time." He left the office to a chorus of rude noises from Peeves.

...

It took Luna a minute to decide what to write, but eventually she went with:

_This diary is the intellectual property of Miss Luna E. C. Lovegood._

She looked out at the lake, then. The afternoon was filled with the symphony of birdsong, but Luna felt strangely empty, ever since Potions class. She wasn't even moved to sadness, per se; she just felt completely blank. It was to this emptiness that she attributed her moderate reaction when she looked down at the book on her lap and saw that the page was blank.

Surely she had just written...Was this a joke? Making the ink disappear? Was it a trick? Was someone watching from the bushes? Someone with a level of self-control that was atypical among Luna's peers; she couldn't even hear any giggling.

Experimentally, she wrote out the same message again, this time watching the page. Sure enough, after a moment, the words vanished.

And she still couldn't hear anyone laughing at her.

Luna tried out another message:

_Will this disappear?_

Again, the words went away.

 _Is this a game?_ she wrote.

The page blankened itself.

Somewhere in herself, Luna happened upon a smile. _Thomas Riddle is the silliest boy I think I've ever met,_ she wrote.

The words disappeared.

Then...ink started to stain the page on its own accord, forming the words: Who _is silly?_

Luna stared at these new words for a moment. They lingered on the page for longer than hers had, but then they, too, vanished...

...and were replaced by more words, despite her quill still not having touched the page in a while:

_Oh, Lovegood, I wish I could see your face!_

Having found the sense of incredulity that she had originally been missing, Luna wrote in large, deep letters on the again-blank page, _TOM?_


	19. Soul Shenanigans

_Greetings, my dear Lovegood._

Luna wondered how smugness could so clearly conveyed in his handwriting alone.

After those words disappeared, more replaced them:

_When are you right now?_

It took a second, but Luna smiled through her dazedness and wrote, _Still first year, for me. Not very long after you gave me this. What sort of magic is this, exactly? And when is it for you?_

The ink disappeared a second after she finished writing, but the response waited several moments before appearing: _Are you alone?_

Of course, she knew that this question could be a risky one to answer. Lacking much by way of self-preservation at that moment, she chose to take that risk. _I'm at Hogwarts, but I'm sitting by myself. I don't think you answered my question, though. Also, why doesn't the ink stay?_

_Is the ink your greatest concern, Lovegood?_

_No, I suppose not. I'd still like an answer to all of my questions, though._

_What does it matter what kind of magic it is? Can't you just be amazed?_

_You're sounding like Mr. The Doctor, now._

Again, the response took a bit longer. _You shouldn't tell him about this. It's best to keep this diary between us._

_A secret diary?_

_Yes._

_Why?_

_Because I gave this gift to you. Not to him._

Rather than committing to a response, Luna began to sketch a cornish pixie. To her mild frustration, the moment she dipped her quill back in the ink, the beginning parts of her sketch started to vanish. _How do I make it stop doing that?_

_This isn't a sketchpad, Lovegood. Promise me you'll keep this book a secret. I want to know that we can share anything in here without fear._

Just before the final word could disappear, Luna traced it with her own quill: _fear_. She wrote nothing else.

_You know that I care about you very much, don't you, Luna?_

This time, she traced the word "care". Then, she added: _When is it for you, Tom?_

 _It's hard to explain._ The pause was almost imperceptible. _But I can show you._

...

Professor Dumbledore was not surprised to find the Doctor already in his office when he arrived.

"Albus!" the time lord exclaimed. "Just finished taking a ride in your Pensieve. Got to say, memory visits are to time travel what scuba diving is to submarining." Before Dumbledore could respond, the Doctor was wrinkling his nose and saying, "That was a rubbish analogy. All the same..."

"Doctor," Dumbledore greeted warmly. "I've just been examining your TARDIS."

The Doctor's expression darkened. "Yes?"

Dumbledore seated himself, wearily, at his desk. "Are you familiar with Horcruxes?"

All at once, the Doctor was alight with fantastic fury. "He didn't turn my TARDIS into a Horcrux," he protested, looking like he was moments away from searching out Riddle and doing him very real harm.

"No," Dumbledore assured him hastily. "No, he did not turn the TARDIS into a Horcrux."

The Doctor relaxed a great deal. "You might have started with that, but...go on."

"When Horcruxes are made," Dumbledore continued, "fragments of souls are bonded to the item being used, such that the soul fragment and the item cannot be separated without the destruction of both, except of course-"

"...except when the witch or wizard in question experiences true remorse," the Doctor finished almost scornfully. "Which mends everything."

"Precisely," Dumbledore agreed, sending the Doctor a curious look over his half-moon spectacles. "But that is the matter entirely: The only magically-secure way to house a soul is in the original body, to which it is already bonded, or by crafting a magical bond between the soul and the object, which in turn requires the fragmenting of the soul, by way of cold-blooded murder, and a very complicated sequence of magic besides. While a soul fragment can easily be placed inside an object, neglecting to bond to the object renders it just as easy to remove, with the proper set of spells. And the time lords, in all their erudition, had no reason to consider this when crafting their TARDISes."

"You're saying he took the TARDIS's soul," the Doctor said flatly. His expression, to Dumbledore's eyes, lent new meaning to the phrase "the Oncoming Storm".

"Removing it from its machine host wouldn't have been tricky, for a boy of Tom's talent," Dumbledore stated gravely. "Harnessing all of the soul's power, however...Even now, I'm not sure he'll have mastered it."

"My TARDIS's entire life force is in the hands of a snake-milking psychopath with magical powers and no nose," the Doctor seethed, stalking toward the door.

"No nose?" Dumbledore repeated.

"It's over your head," the Doctor shot back with vitriol that Albus knew was not meant for him.

"Young men these days have no respect," the portrait of Phineas Nigellus complained from the wall as the Doctor exited.

"That's no young man," another deceased headmaster disagreed.


	20. Tom's Manipulation Tango

Luna did not expect to be pulled into a memory when she consented to being "shown" the answers to her questions.

All the same, soon she found herself in free-fall, her skirt flying up around her torso so that she had to assume Marilyn Monroe position in midair (Marilyn Monroe was a Muggle about whom Luna knew plenty, because Marilyn Monroe had had a secret affair with Gellert Grindelwald, leading ultimately and tragically to her demise. Not that most wizards would admit this.). Then there was marble floor under her, and she was on a dark street, in front of a shop that said "Borgin & Burkes".

Beside her stood Tom, albeit his sixteen-year-old self.

"This is Knockturn Alley," Luna observed.

Tom did not speak. He gave no indication that he had heard her.

"What am I doing here?" Luna persisted.

Instead of answering, Tom walked through her. He just...walked through her, as if he were a ghost, or as if she were. He entered the shop without looking back to see if she was following.

Of course she was supposed to follow, since this was the scene that Tom was showing her to answer her questions.

But Luna was curious. Instead of following Tom into the shop, she walked further down the street. As she walked, the setting darkened, until it was pitch black and silent and all she could sense was the ground beneath her. Then even the ground left, and she was suspended in darkness.

 _What are you doing?_ The words scrawled themselves into the darkness in white ink. Somehow, they _tasted_ of irritation.

"I wanted to see how far the memory goes," Luna answered aloud.

_Why? I thought you wanted an answer to your questions._

"I became a bit distracted, I suppose. I was curious. This is an odd sort of magic, you know."

Instead of answering, Tom changed the setting: he placed her in a room that she instinctively knew was behind the shop. Also in the room were Tom, the greasy shop owner, and a lean man dressed in the attire of a Ministry employee. Not just any employee: he looked as though he was from the Department of Mysteries.

"So you tell me," the shop owner drawled to the Ministry man, "that you cannot pay your debt?"

The Ministry man had a scornful look. "Surely you can overlook a few stray Galleons."

The shop owner shook his head with a terrible sort of smile. "Riddle, read off Mr. Mulligan's history of purchases."

With a flourish that caused Luna to laugh a bit (not that anybody in the room was in a position to notice), Tom unrolled a scroll and began to read off: "Dragon loin, splinching cloak, skin removing powder, throat of-"

"Alright, alright," the Ministry man, Mulligan, interrupted. He had gone more and more ashen-faced as Tom read.

"Quite a sum," the shop owner surmised. "Pity if such an incriminating list were to fall into the wrong hands."

"I can't pay," Mulligan insisted. "What do you want from me?"

The shop owner scratched his chin. (Luna wished she had her spectre-specs; she wondered which person in that room had the most wrack spurts.) "Oftentimes goods can be redeemed for services," the shop owner mused. "The Department of Mysteries is an interesting place indeed. Do you have any secrets that would be worth, to me, what the secrets in Riddle's hand are worth to you?"

Mulligan looked reluctant, but still he leaned forward and whispered to the shop owner (and consequently to Tom, who was trying to pretend that he wasn't listening nearly as closely as he was), "They've cracked time travel."

"Who has?" the shop owner asked, a greedy glimmer in his eyes.

"The Department," Mulligan replied. "They've made a sort of...necklace that can send one back in time. We call them time turners."

The shop owner began to grin widely.

"This cannot become common knowledge," Mulligan insisted. "The use of such tools would have guaranteed unforeseen consequences."

"It's a pleasure doing business with you, Mr. Mulligan," the shop owner said, still with that awful grin, and Tom took his cue to escort a flustered Mulligan out.

Then Luna woke up in her spot on the Hogwarts grounds, in the grass with a baby thestral nudging at her ankle and Tom's diary under her face, open to a deceptively blank page. She found her quill beside her, dipped it, and scrawled out, _That didn't answer much._

_Didn't it? I've given you a way to come see me without the Doctor's help._

Luna went still.

Tom wrote again: _You don't want me to be alone, do you? You're the only one I trust._

Luna traced the word _trust._

Tom's next message was concise: _Do you trust me?_

_That's a silly question. That's not even the point. Whether I trust you or not, how would I acquire a time turner?_

_I already acquired it. You would only have to retrieve it._

_Where is it?_

_Say you trust me. Say you won't tell the Doctor. Say you'll come straightaway._


	21. Time Turner

Professor Dumbledore _was_ surprised when the young Miss Lovegood arrived in his office.

"Good evening, Miss Lovegood," he said with an indulgent smile as the girl wandered his office.

"Good evening, sir," Luna replied, seemingly unable to keep the wonder out of her voice as she mentally catalogued the various tools and decorations. "Do you know where Mr. the Doctor is?"

"He is with his TARDIS at the moment," Dumbledore answered, wondering (not for the first time) at how the Doctor had befriended the eleven-year-old Lovegood girl.

"Hm. He'll want to be alone, then," Luna said sagely.

"I imagine so." Dumbledore noted Luna's somewhat melancholy demeanor. "Is there something you wished to discuss, Miss Lovegood?"

She looked at him, then, for the first time. Her eyes were wide and deeply thoughtful, and something deep inside of Dumbledore prickled for a second, reminded of a different young girl with similar hair and eyes just as full of innocence...Poor, poor Ariana. Not his very first failure, but his very worst. "Sir," Luna began, "could you tell me what you know about...the Come-and-Go Room?"

Dumbledore had not been expecting the question, but he did not allow his confusion to register in his expression. "The Come-and-Go Room, also known as the Room of Requirement, comes equipped with the seeker's needs. An individual in search of a toilet would find a lavatory. A person plagued with exhaustion would find a bedroom. To get it deliberately, though..." He trailed off, eyes focused on Luna.

"I'd have to walk back and forth in front of a wall on the sixth floor, thinking about what I want the room to become," Luna finished for him lightly.

"Is something amiss, Miss Lovegood?"

"No, sir." She offered him a hand, which he shook. How many students had offered to shake his hand over the years? He couldn't help but to feel amused by her strangeness. "Thank you for speaking with me. Your phoenix is very pretty."

...

With Tom's instructions, the Come-and-Go Room was easy enough to find, and soon Luna sat atop an old cabinet, dangling the time-turner from her fingers, holding it in front of her face as though trying to hypnotize herself.

 _I'm not going to do it now, of course,_ Luna thought. _Not until I've spoken with Mr. the Doctor._

She couldn't quite convince herself to go see the time lord, though. After all, he was awfully concerned about his TARDIS, practically in grief, and Luna was not sure that she wanted to see Mr. the Doctor in grief. She didn't quite know what it was, but something about the idea made her a bit ill, and it made her think about her mother. There were so many connections there: her mother and her father, her mother and the Doctor, the Doctor and his TARDIS...

Luna put the time-turner on and opened Tom's diary on her lap. _Did you ever know your parents?_

The answer was immediate: _No. Did you get the time-turner?_

_I have it._

_Come._

_Not yet._

_Lovegood, enough games._

_I'm not playing a game that I'm aware of. I'll come when I know I have a way back home._

It took several seconds for Tom's reply to start appearing, and the change in tone was immediately noticeable; his handwriting had returned to its original neat, even loops rather than the hurried, agitated scrawl it had been moments ago. _Fine then. Tell me about your parents._

Wary but serene, Luna wrote, _My mum died when I was nine. She was a great witch, but now it's just my dad and me._

_Do you love your father?_

_Oh, yes! He's a great man. Since when are you so curious?_

Tom ignored her question and kept firing out his own: _How were things after your mother died?_

Luna froze. Then, she managed to write: _Awful, of course._

_Tell me about it._

_Dad was miserable. I wore my funeral dress for a very long time, but otherwise I tried very hard to keep things light and warm._ Once she started writing, she found she had to explain herself further, to make him understand. _He was so unhappy, you see. He never stopped loving me, but I do think for bits of time he sort of forgot he had a daughter. But that wasn't his fault. He loved her so much, it was like she took half his heart away with her. So I had to take care of him for a while, because he forgot to take care of himself._ At last, her quill went still. She had splashed tiny drops of ink on her knees and hands.

_And you, as well? He forgot to take care of you? He forgot that you were hurting, too?_

Luna was surprised when a tear ran down the side of her nose and landed on the diary's page. Then another followed.

_You're crying._

Luna set her quill down. Her hand was trembling.

 _Careful,_ Tom added. _One's emotions often render one highly susceptible to **influence**._

The word "influence" swam before Luna's eyes, and a panicked part of her had the irrational need to shut the diary straight away, but instead her vision began to go dark.

The last thing she remembered before she blacked out was feeling her hand close around the time-turner without her permission.

...

"Lovegood!" The Doctor sprinted noisily through the halls of Hogwarts. "Lovegood!"

He collided, as luck would have it, with Professor Snape.

"Oi!" he exclaimed. "Severus! Have you seen Lovegood?"

"Not since her disastrous display in my classroom," Snape replied, his dark eyes scanning the Doctor up and down.

"Right. How long ago was that? Don't answer; doesn't matter." The Doctor resumed sprinting. Dumbledore had told him that Luna had been inquiring about the Come-and-Go Room; he would simply meet her there.

He conjured the Room of Requirement as the room of hidden things mainly because it had been such a significant part of the books. He entered amongst the piles of items.

"Lovegood?" he called. So she wasn't here. Well then, he would have to check som-

Was that the vanishing cabinet from book six?

No, no, he wasn't going to get distracted; Lovegood first, cabinet later.

He would have to check somewhere else.

At that moment, an idea hit him that caused him to grin: Who did he know with a map of Hogwarts and everyone in it?

Exiting the Room of Requirement, he again broke into a sprint and shouted through the halls of Hogwarts, "Weasley twins! Weasley twins!"


	22. Tom is Weird and The Map is Clever

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> So, I think, for this chapter, I should leave a trigger warning for pedophilia. Like, nothing comes of it, it's just potentially uncomfortable the way Tom still talks to her as if they're the same age when, at this moment, he's twenty-ish and she's...not.

When Luna's eyes fluttered open, she found that she was lying in a bed in a dimly-lit room. There was a desk and a wardrobe and a window, but this was not Tom's room at the orphanage. That much she could tell.

And Tom was there, murmuring some complex incantation over her, his gaze and his wand making multiple passes from her head to her toes, as if she was being medically examined. The light from his wand, which was the only light in the room, swirled around her in a spirally pattern, and it seemed to brighten and dim in time with either her heartbeat or his. His, she reasoned a second later; her heartbeat was not quite on that rhythm. It did seem to be making efforts to match it, though.

Tom looked a bit older than Hogwarts age, now. His face was still unlined, still objectively handsome, but his hair was longer, now, than she had ever seen it, as if he hadn't bothered to cut it for several weeks. It wasn't a bad look, although Luna wasn't exactly the gold standard in tidiness.

It wasn't until Tom's murmuring stopped, ending the spell and plunging the room into darkness, that Luna gasped, realization after realization hitting her. She had most certainly not agreed to come here, least of all without leaving even a note for Mr. the Doctor. How was he to find her? The geography alone was a question, let alone the chronology.

She had not agreed to come here.

And she did not remember doing so. She had been writing in the diary...She had cried; she remembered crying...and then everything had turned all black. And now she was here, with Tom.

"What have you done?" she asked, her voice coming out thin from disuse.

Tom had busied himself lighting the room. "So you're awake, then, Lovegood?"

"Tom. What have you done?"

"You're going to have to be a bit more specific."

Luna's hand felt along her throat for the time turner and found it still in place. Had Tom left her this means of escape on purpose? "How did you bring me here?" she asked. "I didn't use the time turner."

"But you did, Lovegood," Tom corrected good-naturedly, seating himself on the bed facing her. "You just didn't use it of your own accord. I saw that you were being hesitant, so I used the diary to...urge you on to the inevitable conclusion."

"I didn't know that the diary could control minds," Luna said faintly.

"Well, before you consider that you'll stop using it because of this, I'll just remind you that I could always remove that information from your memory if I suspect that you're growing distant."

This caused Luna to make a statement that she had never made in her life: "That's _weird_ , Tom."

Predictably, he chuckled. "Who are you to say?"

"A fool, for accepting a gift from you," she replied, without any vitriol or bitterness; she still sounded just as light as a breeze, although there was now something slightly sad in her tone. "Most people don't gift mind control. I'd prefer pudding next time, I think."

"I'll keep it in mind."

"What spell were you casting on me?"

Tom smiled self-indulgently. "You only woke up near the end of it. It was rather a complex bit of magic. You'll notice that I'm letting you keep the time turner. A better gift than the last one?"

"I don't know yet."

"Well, it comes with a few provisos; I've altered the time turner so that, firstly, it can only be operated by you, and secondly, it can only travel along my personal timeline. Those alterations were made before I hid the time turner away for you. Now that you've arrived with it, I've endowed you with the same limitation, in case the time lord tries to steal you. Now, no time travel device can take you from my reach. You'll find it difficult to distance yourself very far in space, as well."

"How have you done _that?_ " Luna asked, unsure that _Dumbledore_ could pull off that sort of thing.

"When I was young, I had a deep interest in life-and-death magic: stones to make one immortal, objects to store one's soul, and all that. And while I can't say I no longer have interest in the topic..." (Another self-indulgent smile.) "...once one knows how to kill and knows how to stow away a bit of one's soul, that's all that is really needed. There isn't much of a point to studying further. But _time_ magic!" Tom's face was alight, now, in a way that wasn't completely un-frightening. "That has infinite use, and as it happens, there is one old fool who keeps advanced magical texts in a students' library, and there is another old fool who carries powerful sources of time energy around unprotected _in a box_."

"You hurt Mr. the Doctor's feelings, you know, violating the TARDIS like you did."

Tom waved the comment away. "If a particularly well-read twelve-year-old had the opportunity and the power to do it, one can only conclude that it was in the child's destiny."

"That's a bit of a self-fulfilling prophecy, don't you think?" Luna mused. "If you assume your own destiny and then work to make it real, then it isn't really destiny anymore, is it?"

"That's uncharacteristically cynical," Tom noted.

"No. I believe in destiny. I'm just confused about your view of it."

"Well, it's as I said: destiny is power mixed with opportunity."

"And inclination, I should think. After all, you might have opted not to use your power or your opportunity. On the topic, I might ask why you've chosen to waste your destiny procuring me."

Tom grinned. "Well, it's as I said, Lovegood: You are mine."

Something in the fact that Tom was closer to twenty, now, than twelve made Luna even less comfortable with his comment. She frowned slightly. "I've told you that I am my own."

Tom reached out and lifted her chin with the tip of a forefinger. "And yet here you are, Luna." Somehow, he managed to make his use of her first name sound like a badge of entitlement, a smug display of ownership. How absurd, how completely absurd.

Luna turned her face away purely to get his hand out from under her chin. "I don't like that, Tom."

He ran his fingers along her cheek, now. "I don't need you to like it," he replied.

"What _do_ you need, Tom?"

He smirked but did not answer. She was looking at him again, and she did not know how penetrating her eyes were. It wasn't Dumbledore's brand of penetrating, which was really just Legilimency; it was something more gentle, less demanding, as if she was extending a hand to what she thought might be his heart.

Redundant thing to do; he had given her his soul long ago.

...

"So you haven't got a wand at all?" one of the twins persisted. There went the idea that the Doctor wasn't some Squib, like the Slytherins said.

"Not at all, no. So, if you would..." The Doctor gestured at the folded parchment before them.

After sharing a look, the Weasley twins both shrugged in unison and pointed their wands. "I solemnly-"

"Wait! Actually, can I do it? Just, I've always wanted-"

The twins looked as if they thought they were being pranked. "We can't just give you one of our wands," one of them said indignantly.

"You people. Always obsessed with...Okay, fine, whatever. Go on."

"I solemnly swear that I am up to no good."

As ink filled the page, forming the Map that he had read about, the Doctor took the parchment into his own hands and scanned it.

One of the twins cleared his throat. "So, how did you know about the Map, then?"

"And how'd you know we had it?" the other added.

"It wasn't magic," the first one guessed.

"I dunno, it's a _sort_ of magic," the Doctor said vaguely, still scanning the page. "You read a book and suddenly a bunch of symbols have made elaborate pictures in your mind. Everyone's pictures are different, but most everyone gets something similar. That's magic, isn't it?"

"What book?" the twins asked at the same time.

The Doctor glanced up from the Map to observe, "I shouldn't have told you that." Then, pleased with his own reference, he beamed. _This is the best day ever!_ If only he could find Luna's name, now. Maybe she really was in the Room of Requirement; that didn't appear on the Map. Or perhaps he could ask the ghosts, or the portraits, or...

What was that?

Oh. Oh dear.

By chance, he had found the spot where he stood with Fred and George Weasley. He had found the dot with his name over it.

His true name. Scrawled out just as plainly as any other. Anybody could just...

"Twenty galleons if I can keep this," the Doctor said quickly.

"We can't sell it," the twins protested.

"Thirty."

"It would be an affront to the Marauders."

"A hundred. Go on, you want to open a joke shop, don't you?"

"Sure, but we can't hand over the Map to just anyone," one twin said.

"We'd have to know that you were going to use it properly," the other agreed.

"You're speaking to the bloke who annoyed Peeves. Come on, Weasleys!"

"You don't have a wand; how are you going to-"

"Oh, I'll manage. Very clever, you know. So, hundred galleons, yes?"

And, as if his great day couldn't plummet fast enough, he spotted another unexpected name on the Map. _Oh, you've got to be kidding me._


	23. Eleven Negotiates with the Weasley Twins

"Try it if you want to."

Luna looked up; Tom had caught her fiddling idly with her time turner.

"It goes backwards and forwards, depending on which way you turn it," he told her.

"But I can't go before your birth or past your death, right?"

"I'm never going to die, Lovegood."

"Why not? You want to leave me plenty of options?" Luna was mostly unaware of her own joke; she was feeling a bit twitchy around the hands. She had thought to find precisely the first time that she met with Tom Riddle- or any time that she met with him, really -and to warn herself and Mr. the Doctor of the coming inconvenience, but...

...but that would probably be like spilling hot soup all over the timeline, or the time blanket, or however it was that Mr. the Doctor explained it. It wasn't right. It was probably dangerous, double-dipping that way.

Still.

She could at least go back to a time when it wasn't so deeply unsettling to have Tom staring at her the way he was now; she did not like to be deeply unsettled. "How much is each spin worth?" she asked him.

His eyes gleamed. "That depends on how hard you flick it."

Luna exhaled exaggeratedly. "I'll try at random, then? Lovely." She started to spin the hourglass.

...

"Extension charm?" the twins said in unison.

The Doctor pouted. "I'm going to stop bringing witches and wizards into my TARDIS; you lot have no sense of wonderment."

"Who are we hiding from?" one twin asked.

"Hiding? Who says we're hiding?" the Doctor squeaked out.

The twins exchanged a look. "You were looking at the map, then you suddenly went all weird and shoved us into a blue box across the school from where we were standing?" one of them suggested.

"Right. Fair enough. Tell me, Weasley twins, do you ever have a memory that is completely gone from your mind until, say, you see a photograph of it, and then you remember it in full, rich, gooey detail?"

Again, the twins exchanged a look. "I suppose," the same one (Maybe he'd call this one "Talky One", although, from his recollection of the books, it was probably Fred.) said.

"I've been here before," the Doctor told them earnestly.

It was meant to be a cryptic statement, but almost immediately Talky Twin answered, "What, you mean like time travel or something?"

"That's illegal, you know," the other twin said, but not with nearly the disapproval that the comment warranted. In fact, he was almost smiling.

The Doctor decided that the Weasley twins were most definitely to be trusted. He adopted a casual (read: immensely cool-looking) lean against the TARDIS console. "Well, you are in my time machine."

"Time machine?" the twins repeated, again in unison.

Ah, there was that sense of wonderment.

"You've got a time machine at Hogwarts, and-"

"-and we didn't know about it?" Talky Twin finished, sounding affronted.

The Doctor brandished his finger. "Correctamundo!" he exclaimed, then winced. "Oh, I said I wouldn't..."

"And you _use_ this thing?" Talky demanded.

"Yup."

"Can we?"

"Yup. No!" the Doctor hastily corrected himself. "No, no, absolutely not."

This time, the look the twins exchanged was a purely mischievous one. "Doctor," Talky said, "you're taking away our _Map._ "

"As well as robbing the school of the wholesome trouble-making that the Map can enable us to bring about," Less-Talky added.

"Oh, come off it. You give it away in a year anyway."

It didn't take the twins nearly the time that the Doctor expected to recover from this bombshell. "Even better," Talky replied. "You're actually changing time by taking it from us."

"The least you can do is let us have a go on your time machine."

"Okay, first: That is about the farthest you can get from 'the least I can do'. Second: I might as well change time; time is already changing here, now that Lovegood-" He stopped himself, feeling like an absolute dunce.

"Lovegood?" Untalky repeated. " _Xenophilius_ Lovegood?" Oh, no, that would make just _too much_ sense.

"You let Xenophilius Lovegood have a go, but not us?" Talky said incredulously.

"No..." the Doctor answered, scratching at the back of his neck. "Forget I said 'Lovegood'. Strike that from the record."

"Not his _child_ , then!" Talky said, catching up too fast. "The eleven-year-old!"

The Doctor straightened. "Hey, I will have you know, when we first traveled together, she was nine." Since that evidently wasn't nearly the game-changing defense that it was meant to be, the Doctor went on, "And we were being chased by Daleks." This only earned him uncomprehending looks. "And what does age matter to me anyway? I'm at least a thousand by now." There. Now the twins were almost completely distracted. Good; he feared he was this close to making them companions, and he could only imagine what trouble they could cause with, say, the Jadoon. "We are getting off-topic," he said at last. "The point is, I've been here before and I'm here now and both of those statements mean the same thing. And neither of me are alone."

The two of them actually took a few seconds to digest this. The Doctor found himself relaxing, glad that now they were finally grasping the gravity of the situation.

"So there's a second time machine somewhere around the castle," Untalky surmised.

The Doctor scowled at the twins. "You two are the absolute worst people to talk to, do you know that?"

...

Clearly, it wasn't just time travel; Luna appeared in the Slytherin common room of Hogwarts.

"But..." She stood perplexed for a second. She was being stared at by a whole host of unfamiliar Slytherins, with no Tom in sight, but that wasn't important right now. "But surely that's cheating," she protested aloud. "No one can Apparate into Hogwarts."

"Lovegood." She turned around; Tom was standing at the room's entrance, dressed in his Slytherin robes, looking about her age. "It's about time."

"How did she get here, Riddle?" an older Slytherin demanded.

Tom regarded the boy with distaste. "Magic, I assume, Bowman."

Bowman wore an expression that clearly said that only Tom could get away with such cheek.

"I don't understand," Luna was murmuring to herself. She almost reached for the time turner, but then she turned the motion into a casual pat at her own hair; the Slytherins certainly couldn't know about the power that she was wearing around her neck. And what power it was! "There's no way..."

"Lovegood," Tom addressed her. "Come with me."

She followed him out of the common room, into a hallway of the dungeons. They stopped a short way from the door, and he cast a Muffliato charm before looking her over.

"So it seems I do manage it, in the future," he noted. "No TARDIS, no Doctor."

Luna was already frowning a bit, so she didn't have to change her expression much at his comment. "You'd been planning it for this long?"

"Of course."

"What year is it for you?"

"Still second."

Now, Luna looked him over. "I'd ask if you're lying, but that might be a bit pointless."

Tom grinned. "Maybe a bit. Come on. I want to show you something."


	24. Two New Arrivals and an Unfortunate Unicorn

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ah, this. This is the chapter I was thinking of when I agonized over whether or not to leave a "graphic violence" warning. Like, I don't think it's too graphic, but you can never be too careful. Anyway, if this is the first we see of Tom's madness, it'll probably get worse.

Naturally, there were thirty different people to tell Albus about the sudden new appearance in his castle, the man referring to himself as "the Doctor" even though they already _had_ a mysterious man called "the Doctor" in residence.

Naturally, one of the thirty was Lockhart, and naturally, he refused to drop the issue.

As such, Dumbledore was closely pursued by Lockhart as he progressed through the halls.

They found the time lord on the seventh floor, wearing a trench coat and a face that Dumbledore had seen before, but not frequently.

He broke into a grin when he saw Albus, and he squealed, "Is that Albus Dumbledore?"

Dumbledore smiled modestly. "It's rather early, for you, then, I trust."

A woman on the Doctor's other side stepped closer. "That is!" she exclaimed. "That's Dumbledore, and that, that's Gilderoy Lockhart, isn't it?"

This brought out the showman in Lockhart; he drew himself up into his most prideful stance and said, "Ahaha, always a pleasure to meet one of my many devoted fans." Then he kissed the woman's hand, and though it was hard to tell, she might have blushed.

"Oh..." she said, ducking her head as though embarrassed.

The Doctor made a face. "Martha, really? You've read the books!"

"Really?" Lockhart preened. "Wonderful, and terribly clever of you, to have armed yourself with the expertise that could be found only in my published works."

"Oh my G-d," Martha chuckled. "This git." Lockhart recoiled from the word, but already Martha was continuing, "But if this is Lockhart Year, and it's after Christmas, that means we've got to...keep our guard up, doesn't it? Keep a mirror, or something?" She turned to look at Dumbledore. "Sorry about Filch's cat."

"Are you referring to Mrs. Norris?" Dumbledore repeated, confused.

"Yeah. She got petrified at Halloween, didn't she?" Martha looked back at the Doctor for reassurance.

"STOP!" And the newer, bowtie-wearing Doctor sprinted around the corner and stood between Dumbledore and...himself. "Stop everything!"

"But who's this?" Martha asked. "Is he...I don't know, some minor professor or something? Or Peeves?"

"Peeves?" Bowtie Doctor repeated, aghast.

"Peeves?" Trench coat Doctor repeated, perplexed and intrigued.

"Yeah, Peeves. He wasn't transparent, was he?"

"I always imagined..."

"Pardon me," Dumbledore interjected, and Trench coat Doctor and Martha paused their side chat. "While, Doctor, you are always welcome in my school, I confess myself uncertain as to why you _have_ come...this time." Dumbledore turned to Lockhart. "Gilderoy, could you perhaps inform the rest of the staff of our new guests? The rest of you, I would appreciate joining me in my office."

...

Tom's grip on Luna's wrist was tight as he led her down into the Forbidden Forest. It was a testament to how accustomed Luna was to being alone with Voldemort that she became swiftly distracted.

"Oh!" she exclaimed once, stopping abruptly, then stumbling as for a moment Tom tried to keep walking. "Doesn't that cloud look just like a rooster? And then that one beside it could be a blibbering humdinger on its side."

Tom paused a moment, staring at her instead of the clouds, then continued pulling her along: "Come on."

"You ought to enjoy things, Tom," Luna commented. "The clouds, the wind. You should take the time to enjoy ordinary things."

"Sure, Lovegood."

Luna frowned a little, then sped up so that she could look at Tom's face. "What are your interests, Tom?"

At this, Tom smiled sardonically. "You have to ask that?"

"I don't mean the sorts of magic that you like practicing," Luna qualified. "What _things_ do you like to do, just for yourself, that you enjoy? Drawing, or flying, or..."

"You know very well I don't do any of that," Tom replied. "I don't do things for no reason."

"Sure you do, Tom. Isn't that why I'm here?"

This time, Tom was the one who stopped walking. He wasn't looking at her, but his thumb roamed to and fro over the back of her hand. "You say such stupid things," he at last said, sort of coolly.

Luna sighed. This was not how she had imagined friendship; Tom offered her nearly the same ridicule that others did, but none of the freedom. He alternated, seemingly at random, between dismissing her as a fool and hanging greedily on her every word. "I'm sure you're right, Tom," she said loftily.

And he seemed to notice that she was not charmed by this treatment of her, because he smiled, suddenly, and changed his demeanor to a conspiratorial one that seemed to suggest that his abduction of her to the forest was really a consensual adventure. "Come on," he said excitedly, and she was dragged along with even greater enthusiasm.

...

"So, Ten...May I call you Ten?"

"Ten?" Martha repeated. "What's that mean?"

"I'm the tenth incarnation of the Doctor," Ten replied. He and Martha were seated in front of Dumbledore's desk, like students. Eleven, meanwhile, stood (lurked, was more like it) near Fawkes's perch, in the side of the room. "Regeneration, you know."

"Oh." Martha frowned slightly. "Well...how does Dumbledore know it's your tenth?"

"Recognizes this face, I imagine. My tenth face."

"Wait, you mean...?"

"Yup." Ten gestured at his face. "Tenth."

"Indeed." Dumbledore glanced at Eleven, who was still lurking, receiving frequent nervous looks from Martha and none from Ten, although certainly the latter was aware of Eleven's every (rare) movement. "Ten, I confess myself at a loss as to why you've come here. It appears to be very early in your timeline indeed, so I doubt this is a purely social visit. If something is amiss, I hope you'll tell me now. You mentioned Mrs. Norris and...petrification?"

"They're just confused, Albus," Eleven interjected. "Disoriented. It's their first time here, after all."

Dumbledore kept a serious look in place. "Doctor, I hope to never be so foolish as to try to deny you your secrets, but you are well aware that I take the well-being of this castle's occupants very seriously." (Ignoring the irony there...) "If there is a danger..."

"But there isn't, Albus," Eleven said. "That's what I'm trying to tell you."

"Wait a bit," said Martha. "You called him 'Doctor'."

Eleven grinned at Martha the way only he could. Pointing at his past incarnation, he said, "Ten." Then he pointed at himself. "Eleven."

Ten sprang to his feet and immediately had his sonic screwdriver out, examining, and Eleven was quick to mirror him.

"Merlin's beard," Martha said, then beamed at her own expression. "I got to say it."

"What's going on?" Ten asked Eleven, his words rushed. "You said there's no danger. What do you mean?"

"Spoilers," Eleven said.

"But it's in the books, though," Martha protested. "The cat and everything...You can't just change what happened, can you?"

"Alright, on the premise that you" (Eleven pointed at Ten.) "aren't going to remember this anyway and you" (He gestured at Dumbledore.) "won't let up, I'll explain...forty-seven percent of what's happened and why it isn't my fault this time."

...

"What do you think?" He had to ask because Luna was stunned speechless for a long moment.

"What have you done to it?" she finally asked.

The being was pearly white and constantly in flux: it was an embryo floating in midair fluid, then it was a foal, then it was a stallion, then a weak and withering thing, then an embryo all over again. Over and over again. Growing, whimpering, whinnying, its horn sprouting from its skull and receding. The full cycle took up about a minute each time; the sound of bones forcing themselves to stretch and then compress was almost as loud as the creature's complaints.

Somehow, Tom had trapped a unicorn in a time loop.

And he was very proud of himself. "It wasn't all that difficult," he boasted. "It only took me three tries. The first time I made a mistake and did the 'growing' part before the 'ungrowing', which only made it die faster, and I couldn't reverse that. The second time, I managed to cast the spell fine, but it still died because it couldn't get food or water while it was constantly changing. I've had to make accommodations for this one just to keep it alive long enough for you to see it. The bright side is, I was able to get the wasted time energy back from the failures."

Luna shook her head, at a loss as to whether she had ever seen anything so horrible in her entire life. The poor creature was suffering, innocent and horrified as every second denied it a stable state of body. And yet...and yet she was entranced. She had never seen a unicorn before, and at every stage of life, even the embryonic and the geriatric, it was beautiful.

Her eyes were watering, from its beauty and from its pain and from her inability to blink as she beheld it.

She could feel Tom enjoying her reaction. "So you like it, then?"

Luna managed to close her eyes. "Stop hurting it, please," she said quietly.

Tom laughed, without malice. "If I stop now, it'll just die like the other two. The time energy is what is keeping it alive."

"Did you use Mr. the Doctor's TARDIS to do this?" Luna asked. "To torture this poor unicorn?"

"This poor unicorn gets to live a million lives," Tom stated.

" _Horrible_ lives," Luna insisted. "Stop hurting it."

Tom quirked an odd sort of smile. "Anything for you, Lovegood." He pointed his wand at the creature. "Avada Kedavra!"

A green flash of light and a final loud whimper. Luna winced as the unicorn went still, slain. A tear ran down her cheek. "Why did you show me that?" she asked Tom. "Did you just want to see me cry?"

Tom shrugged, then took her hand and led her to the animal's corpse. It didn't even occur to her to protest.

A golden substance like mist was beginning to seep out of the unicorn's body, and with a wave of his wand, Tom collected it into a bubble. "Time energy," he said. "Very dangerous."

Luna reached over to close the unicorn's eyes. "Poor thing."

"It taught me a lot," Tom told her.

"Not willingly," she sighed.

Tom looked at her. Actually, he had been looking at her nearly the whole time: her horror, her awe, her change in hue as the green flash lit the whole clearing. She was very stunning in the green light; green complimented her. That she was a Ravenclaw was even more of a waste in potential than he had realized.

Tom considered killing a bird or a squirrel, just to see her lit by the green again.

Her eyes, those great wide batty things, met his over the unicorn's corpse. They were pinkened from crying, but she was not crying anymore; she was looking at him as if trying to extract him from himself.

And that was when he kissed her.


	25. Searching for Luna; Delivering Tom

"Luna Lovegood and Tom Riddle?" Ten repeated.

"Yes," Eleven sighed, sinking into one of the chairs. His explanation, or, more accurately, all of the flapping around he had been doing during the explanation, had clearly worn him out.

"You let that happen more than once?" Ten persisted. "Just because she _asked_ you to?"

"Doctor...am I correct in understanding that you willingly exposed one of my students to the most dangerous dark wizard currently living?" Dumbledore's gaze was sharp over his half-moon spectacles.

Eleven did not waver, although there was no pride in his tone. "Nothing you haven't done to Harry Potter, Albus. And the Angel sent her to him first, back when you still had an infestation."

"But you've been humoring her ever since," Ten said.

"And things have _changed_ ," Eleven shot back. "The Chamber hasn't opened this year."

"But if he opened it the first time, that means Myrtle still died, which means the diary still exists and is still a Horcrux," Martha said. "No opened Chamber this year means Harry doesn't destroy the Horcrux...right?"

"Right..." Eleven murmured, rising from the chair all over again to pace feverishly. "Right! The diary! And no opened Chamber means Ginny doesn't have it, and we haven't done anything to Lucius Malfoy's timeline that I know of, so if Ginny doesn't have it, Malfoy Senior probably never had it either."

"A Horcrux?" Dumbledore repeated.

"In the unaltered timeline, a diary is slipped into Ginny Weasley's cauldron by Lucius Malfoy while shopping at Diagon Alley," Eleven said. "The diary once belonged to Tom Riddle, and he placed a fragment of his soul in it after killing Moaning Myrtle. Harry Potter was to destroy the Horcrux in the diary later this year."

"So where's the diary?" Martha asked rhetorically.

Dumbledore leaned over to speak to one of the portraits on the wall: "Alcesta, could I trouble you to tell Filius that I require a word with Miss Lovegood?" The painted lavender-robed witch left her protrait with a curt nod.

"You think Luna has it?" Eleven surmised.

"It is a possibility that ought to be addressed," Dumbledore replied.

"I still don't understand," Martha protested. "Doctor...Ten, I mean... _You_ said it's impossible to change the books because they're fixed points."

"It _would_ have been impossible," Ten said hotly, shooting a glare at his future self. "For an outsider. If we'd tried to pop in on Harry Potter's 'misuse of magic' trial before his fifth year and murder Deloris Umbridge, we'd have been deleted from the timeline like bacteria and the changes would have been erased. Even if we'd tried to enter gaps inside the story, like time elapses before major holidays during the school year, and interacted with the major characters then, we'd get that same result. That's why JK wrote the books in the first place; to make sure, as best she could, that this universe's happy ending was protected from outside interference. But Luna's early life isn't _in_ the books, so it was never set in stone that she didn't, say, meet and befriend a time lord. Eleven changed Luna's potential from _outside_ her story, from before she became a part of the story, and _she_ changed Tom's story from the inside."

"She was just enough of an outsider to have wiggle room but just enough of an insider to be able to make changes in the story," Eleven said in a pensive monotone. "Native, but not integral. And she has Clara's impossible-ness..."

"She has whose what?"

"I can't explain it."

The lavender-robed witch, Alcesta, returned to her portrait. "He can't find her, Albus. He says that she hasn't been to any of her classes today, she isn't in Ravenclaw Tower, and none of the other girls in her year have any idea as to her whereabouts."

Urgently, Eleven unfurled the Marauders Map and began scanning the page. "She's not on the Map; she must be in the Room of Requirement," he said, clearly preparing to break into a sprint.

Ten grabbed his arm. "Or in the Chamber. If Tom could have given her his diary..."

"Then we split up," Eleven suggested. "I go to the Room of Requirement, you and Martha go to Myrtle's bathroom...I'm sure the TARDIS translator can do Parseltongue."

Ten nodded. "Sure."

"Or!" Martha interjected. "We could save time by just asking the portraits and ghosts if they've seen her."

Both Doctors took a moment to ponder this before nodding in slightly-embarrassed agreement.

...

Of course, she bit him.

Tom jerked back, stunned, while Luna, seeming at most perplexed but with her eyelashes still damp from crying over the unicorn, ran her fingertips over her own lips. "I didn't give you permission to do that," she said.

"You bit me," Tom replied, clearly stupefied in the non-magical sense.

"Yes," Luna agreed breezily.

Tom gingerly felt at his own tongue. "I didn't know you hurt people."

"Neither did I," Luna answered, casually pulling at a necklace chain that was around her neck. "I suppose it turns out that I hurt people who torture unicorns and then kiss me without permission." She started turning the time turner.

"You once told me that you wanted to see a unicorn," Tom said. "And a crumple-horned snorcack, but I couldn't manage that one. Yet."

(The word 'yet' was a temptation, but Luna kept going on the time turner.)

"So I found a unicorn for you."

"And tortured it."

"Well, yeah." Tom rolled his eyes. "And you got to see it in every stage of life. That's like showing you a hundred unicorns."

"I do not like it when you hurt things, Thomas."

Tom grinned, both in amusement at her words and in enjoyment of hearing her say his name. And he used to _hate_ his name. "That was still a good kiss though, wasn't it?" he said smugly. Then he noticed her hands on her necklace, and though he had no way of knowing what a time turner was, the tiny hourglass in the center was a clue. "Wait a minute, stop that!" he ordered.

Luna released the hourglass; she had spun it enough times anyway. In fact, she had turned it so many times that it would turn no more, in that direction at least. Luna vanished from the clearing with the unicorn's corpse, leaving as well Tom, who looked outraged.

Luna didn't mind that he was outraged. Apparently, not only had she failed in her mission to keep him from killing people, but she had also managed to somehow allow him to convince himself that she wanted him to torture unicorns for her.

And then he had kissed her, so of course she had to leave. It was only a shame that she wasn't traveling out of his grasp at all; only hopping to a different point on his timeline. Away from the clearing in the Forbidden Forest, into a dim room in an awful, dank house.

When Luna heard a woman's screams, she was certain that she had flicked the time turner in the wrong direction and ended up in the future. The idea (and the screaming) caused her to shiver; she had been avoiding her future, Tom's future, deliberately.

But then her eyes adjusted to the dimness, and she found that the source of the screams was a woman whose stomach was positively swollen with child. She was in labor, and well-along, as well, not that Luna could be perfectly certain.

The woman saw Luna, and instead of asking who she was or why she had appeared in what must have been her home, the woman panted out a weak "H-Help."

...

"She's not here," Ten stated, shaking his head.

"Nick said he saw her go into the Room of Requirement and he didn't see her come out," Eleven argued. "Neither did that daft troll portrait."

"Yes, but she _isn't here_ ," Ten repeated.

"She can't have just _gone_ ," Eleven said. "You can't Apparate in or out of Hogwarts, and both of us have our TARDISes, so she didn't go on a joyride."

"There's a vanishing cabinet in here," Martha pointed out. "Maybe she...vanished."

"The cabinet's broken," Ten reminded her. "Malfoy has to fix it in book six."

"But the twins send some Slytherin bloke away with it in book five," Martha countered.

"Oi, are you two going on a quiz show or something?" Eleven spotted something on the ground at the foot of the vanishing cabinet, then. "Oh." He bent down to more closely examine it. "Oh, that's not good."

It was a diary. _The_ diary. And something about it seemed so fundamentally sinister that the Doctor dared not touch it.

"But...that's it," Martha observed. "If that's here, maybe she abandoned it like Harry did his potions book in-"

"No," Ten interrupted. "If that were true, then she would be...somewhere."

"Gimme it," Martha said, picking the book up and removing an ink pen from her jeans pocket.

"What are you doing?" Ten asked, rapid-fire, and at the same time, Eleven protested, "Martha, wait! We don't know what might happen, or what the book is capable of in this version of the timeline!"

"There's a child in danger, and I'm a doctor," Martha said firmly, then relaxed and scrawled out, _Tom Riddle?_

The words faded away, and it briefly seemed that there would be no reply, but then: _Who are you?_

Both Doctors craned their necks to read over Martha's shoulder, curiosity winning out over caution. Martha wrote, _I'm a friend of Luna's._

This time, the response was so quick that her words almost didn't have time to properly disappear. _I was not aware that Luna had other friends._ There was a pause. _Unless you're the Doctor. But I don't believe that to be the case._

 _I'm not the Doctor,_ Martha wrote.

_No. If the Doctor were to touch my diary, he would experience the agonizing effects of a fatal curse the likes of which I doubt even he has known._

Martha and the Doctors shared a wary look. _You're very protective of your diary,_ Martha hazarded. _Most teens just put on a lock._

_Tell me your name, friend-of-Luna's._

"Oh," Martha murmured.

"Don't tell him," Ten whispered, as if Tom were physically in the room with them.

Martha wrote down the first name that came to mind. _I'm Penelope._ (Huh. That was the name that Hermione used in book seven. Martha congratulated herself mentally.)

 _Penelope._ The handwriting seemed more relaxed, more steady. _And you are a casual friend?_

_I'm a friend who wants to know where Luna is._

"Martha," Ten cautioned.

The response arrived swiftly and deliberately. _All you need to know about Luna is that she is **not yours**._

And nothing that Martha wrote after that could get them another response.

...

Luna had never delivered a human baby before, but she had helped her grandmother deliver a cow back when her grandmother was alive, and she imagined they were essentially the same. She crouched near the woman's underside. Oh, yes; there the baby was, past crowning. Luna cast a quick cleaning spell on her own hands, then reached down to carefully help the infant along.

Then he was out.

"Oh my," Luna murmured, holding the small, wrinkly thing in her arms, drenched in the strong-smelling fluid. She took a few moments to ensure that the baby was breathing as he should; he started bawling loudly. (No, there was nothing wrong with his lungs.)

"Let...me...see..." the woman panted out. Her skin was positively glossed over with sweat, and she seemed barely able to lift her hand.

Luna brought the baby closer to his mother. "It's a boy, ma'am. You see?"

"Thomas," the woman said, clearly funneling all of her strength into the name. "Call him Thomas, for his father, and Marv-...Marvolo, for mine. T-Thomas Marvolo Riddle."

"Alright," Luna said softly. "I understand."

The woman had begun to sob, and Luna brushed aside the hair that was sweat-plastered to the woman's face and took her hand, running her thumb over the woman's bony knuckles as a comfort.

"Do you have any potions?" Luna asked. "Or any ingredients? I'm rubbish at Potions, but I can try-"

"I can't...stay...for him," the woman interrupted weakly. "I can't stay. I..." Her head fell back, and she sighed.

Luna's lip trembled. "I know," she said, almost to herself. She did not want to watch Tom's mother die. She did not want to watch anyone's mother die ever again.

"Take him away, please, help him," the woman whimpered. "Take him."

"I will, I will," Luna said, not releasing her hand; as horrible as this was for her, it had to be twice as bad for the woman herself. Still, she cooed to Tom, who was turning red, now, from his bawling. "Shh, shh, Thomas, I'm here. I'm right here, and Mummy's right here."

"Mummy's here," the woman whispered, and then, as slowly as ice melting, she went limp.

Luna took her hand away and cast _Tergeo_ on the baby to rid of the blood and the amniotic fluid. "Shh, I know, I know." She rocked him in her arms. "I know." And she began to cry. "I know, it's awful not to have a mother. I know. I'm here, Thomas."

He fell asleep in her arms.

...

"He took her, Albus," Eleven said.

"She's not in the Chamber of Secrets, she wasn't in the Room of Requirement," Ten said.

"But we found his diary," Martha finished. "It's here. And he said it's cursed so the Doctor can't touch it."

"In that case, I doubt that I should hazard it either," Dumbledore said. "Could you set it down on my desk, please, Miss Jones?"

"It's Doctor Jones, actually." With a small smile of pride, Martha set the book down. Then her expression turned grave again. "But how could he have just...taken Luna?"

"It's obvious," Eleven said. "He can't have transported her in space; Hogwarts is too well-protected. So, he must have transported her in time. It's possible he had the means."

"What do you mean?" Ten asked.

"He stole the soul of my TARDIS," Eleven ground out.

"He can steal the TARDIS's soul and you didn't tell me?" Ten demanded.

"Well, he can't steal it twice; that would be a paradox," was Eleven's retort.

"How did he do that?"

"Magic," Eleven said, then turned to Dumbledore. "Albus, if he's transported Luna in time, we won't be able to find her unless there's some sort of trail. Most likely a magical trail, as that is Tom's area of expertise. The question is, what might he have done that would leave a trail?"

"Dark magic always leaves dark traces," Dumbledore said. "Although of course it is our hope that he hasn't used any. Apart from this." He gestured grimly at the diary.

"The diary can control people's minds," Martha said. "Whatever he's done to kidnap Luna, she might have been helping him do it."

"Good point," Eleven murmured. "Any ideas, Albus?"

"If Miss Lovegood's autonomy is in doubt, then it might be the simple matter of a time turner," Dumbledore said.

Eleven went still.

Ten smacked himself in the forehead. "Oh! Of course! Stupid; that was in book three!"

"But that still doesn't tell us where...I mean, _when_ she's gone, does it?" Martha protested.

Eleven could hear his own past words; he had _mentioned_ time turners out loud to Riddle that day. It had been crammed into a boast, but obviously Riddle had remembered. "I helped the Department of Mysteries develop time turners," Eleven said slowly. "Decades ago. Tom would've been...He wouldn't have been Hogwarts age anymore. Probably working at Borgin and Burkes, by then, if that part of the timeline is the same. But if he was waiting for them to be invented..."

"How could he?" Martha asked.

"I told him they would be invented," Eleven sighed.

"You were boasting, weren't you?" Ten said. " _Why_ do we always do that?"

"Big-headed, I imagine?" Martha proposed, and both time lords (well, both of the same time lord) nodded.

"So, Mr Riddle was aware that time turners would be invented," Dumbledore mused. "And he had years to experiment with time magic in preparation. I can confirm that, in this version of events, Riddle spent time as an employee of Borgin and Burke's. The Department of Mysteries aren't open about the discoveries they make, but practicians of dark magic often share secrets, and in a shop as well-established as Borgin and Burke's...Tom would have had access to his fair share of secrets."

"So that's our first stop, right?" Ten suggested. "Borgin and Burke's, around the time the time turners are invented. And it'll have to be me and Martha, because we're the faces he won't recognize."

"Don't be stupid; I'm going as well," Eleven said. "He just won't be _seeing_ my face."

...

"I hope you don't think this changes anything," Luna cooed to Baby Tom as she sat on the doorstep of the orphanage. "You still tortured a unicorn."

Tom opened his eyes sleepily. His little eyes, barely seeing. He started opening his mouth, then, experimentally it seemed.

"I can't give you any milk," Luna mused. "But I can give you company, for a little while. No one deserves to start off alone." _No one._ "And I know you won't like it here. You're unhappy here. But it would break time if I didn't..."

Well. She had to leave him at the orphanage. It was where he grew up, after all.

But she didn't have to leave him at the orphanage...right _now._

"Let's have a walk first, alright?"

...

Thomas Riddle, the one in the clearing with the dead unicorn, flexed his still-sore tongue. That had been an experience. For the most part, it had gone very well. Only she had left, and he did not like that.

No matter. If his future self had done the magic correctly, she couldn't go far. And she would always be back to him again.

He watched the bubble of time energy (Time energy that had already taught him so _much!_ ) hover and drift on a tiny breeze. What was it Luna had said about appreciating the small things?


	26. Lying to a Liar and Crying with a Hufflepuff

"Did you borrow that from the Potters?" Ten demanded.

Eleven rolled his eyes, which was the last thing they saw him do, because next he was tossing the Invisibility Cloak over himself. " _No_. I wouldn't do that; I just say things like that to impress people."

"Then where did you get it?" Ten asked, unmoved.

"The Peverells!" Eleven's voice replied with such chipper that he might as well have been visible.

"Alright," Ten sighed. "Our mission is to get information from Tom Riddle at Borgin and Burke's without him suspecting anything. If he suspects something, we're all at the mercy of an evil mastermind who can do magic. So, Me-" (He pointed a strict finger at where he assumed Eleven to be.) "-That means no talking, no noises, and don't knock anything over."

"And make sure the Cloak doesn't fall off," Martha added. "Though I wish we could just bring along McGonagall or something; should make this easier."

"We can't risk a face he would recognize," Ten said, "and we can't risk spoilers for occupants of this universe."

"Right," Eleven said. "We've already got Albus well-spoiled for what _didn't_ happen."

"I'm about to meet Tom Riddle," Martha marveled. "I'm about to lie to Tom Riddle."

Ten flipped several switches on the TARDIS console. "As we'll be in Knockturn Alley, we'll want to seem sort of...dark and dodgy, I expect."

Martha swiftly lost her smile and put on an unconvincing surly expression. "Right. Dodgy. That's me. Artful Dodger."

"Don't do that," Ten sighed.

Martha only chuckled as the TARDIS whooshed them off to their destination. "So, are we faking wizard names?"

"I was gonna go with John Smith, to be honest," Ten said.

Martha snorted. "That's a Muggle name! At least you've got to be Johneus Smithawumble or Janus Sagittarius or something."

"Oh, just steal a name from the future," Eleven interjected from somewhere to Martha's left. "It's what I do, when I have to. I told the Peverells I was Percy Weasley."

"Percy Weasley?" Ten repeated. "You could've been Ron. You could've been Dumbledore!"

"Yeah, I panicked," Eleven sighed.

"That's perfect, though," Martha said. "I'll be, um, Marietta Edgecomb, and you can be Teddy Lupin."

"Brilliant. Mari-...Do you just have obscure character names in your mind at all times?" Ten demanded.

Martha beamed just as the TARDIS reached its destination.

Ten's face turned serious. "Alright. Remember: Knockturn Alley. Borgin and Burke's. Got to act like we belong so we don't get killed by wizards. Don't smile, don't giggle, and no gaping eyes of wonderment."

"Still, a bit better than 'Don't blink', yeah?"

Both Doctors groaned at the reminder.

"Hate those things..." Eleven muttered.

"Any more of them in the future?" Ten asked idly as he strolled up to the TARDIS door.

"Spoilers."

"I know, I know." Ten shook his head, then grimly repeated, "Knockturn Alley," and opened the door.

...

"I learned to milk cows from my grandparents," Luna said conversationally to the tiny baby who was slurping milk from the repurposed potion flask in her hand. She was seated in a pasture, surrounded by grazing cows, and Tom was strapped to her torso in a baby holster that she had fashioned out of her school robes. On the whole, she was more at ease than she had been in at least the past twenty-four hours.

Or maybe it only felt that way with the unicorn torture still fresh in her mind. She was still gradually detoxing away the emotional residue of the unicorn torture. The sound of its bones had left rather a strong impression.

She gazed at the sunrise and tried to push away thoughts of pain and death, but she was only internalizing it, and her experience with the Great Intelligence two years ago had taught her that internalizing things did little good. Best to push the poison out of reach rather than further inside.

She looked down at Tom. The milk was dribbling from the corners of his mouth and bubbling between his lips. If only images like this could have circulated of the "Dark Lord"; he would have thought twice before trying to earn anybody's fear. At least, she liked to think that he would. _But then, Thomas has never thought twice in his entire life, has he?_ she thought (a bit rudely, she supposed).

"I've got to take you back," she said halfheartedly to the baby. "You've got to go to the orphanage eventually. Just because I have practically all the time in the world doesn't mean I'm allowed to cheat."

Tom moaned pitifully.

At the same time, Luna's stomach growled. That's right...She supposed she hadn't eaten in a while. Not since before Tom entrapped her with his stupid time turner, in fact.

And she couldn't help but to doubt that a Muggle establishment would serve her. Not when she had no Muggle money, no clue as to how to even order in a Muggle establishment (especially in this time period), and in addition probably smelled like cows.

That left her one option worth considering.

"Alright," she said calmly. "We're going to the Leaky Cauldron. But it's straight back to the orphanage after."

...

They entered the shop in a V formation, Martha spearheading them, Ten hanging left, and Eleven lurking invisibly to the right.

"Hello," Martha said, only a bit too brightly, to the greasy old man at the desk. "I-"

"Sign the visitors' log," the man interrupted, gesturing to a dingy old book on the countertop.

"Hello," Martha tried again while signing in with her assumed name and Ten's. "I'm Marietta Edgecomb, and-"

"Edgecomb?" the man repeated. "Of the Yorkshire Edgecombs?"

Martha only froze for a moment before smiling again, then thinking better of it and donning a somewhat haughty expression. "The very same."

"It's rare," the man said slimily, "that someone of your...leaning...would announce herself so plainly in a place like this." He looked her over while she was still processing his words. "And in such...attire."

"I didn't know it was common practice for you to remark on your customers' fashion," Martha said smoothly.

The man smiled thinly. "My apologies, ma'am. And you are here for...?"

With a grand flourish of her hand- Clearly she was enjoying herself too much -Martha gestured at Ten. "My associate, Mr. Theodore Lupin, has just arrived from Albania, and he would like to be shown the contents of this shop."

Still wearing his peculiar smile, the man looked over his shoulder and called into the shop's back room, "Riddle! Could you give Mr. Lupin and Madame Edgecomb a tour of the shop?"

From the doorway emerged a pale young man, handsome but cool-looking and the slightest bit untidy; his hair in particular was clearly in want of a trim.

"Perfect," Martha said, but her tone had changed; it sounded as if she was operating on half of her normal air. But then, that was to be expected. This was _him_. It was _Voldemort_ standing in front of her, meeting her eyes with his own, and she was a _Muggle_. He could kill her with two silly words, torture her with one.

She broke eye contact; she kept her gaze moving. If he deigned to practice any sort of Legilimency on her, their plan would fall apart completely.

"Right this way," Tom Riddle said.

Martha hung back a bit so that Ten could fall into step behind him.

...

Dinner was five Sickles. Luna counted herself lucky that Tom hadn't robbed her in addition to kidnapping her, and luckier still that she always kept what money she had on her person rather than in her trunk (to keep it safe from metal-eating zimwidgets and the run-of-the-mill niffler).

"Excuse me," said a hesitant voice. A freckled young man in a blue waistcoat had drifted nearby. He stood slightly curled in on himself, as though anxious that he would bother her if he took up too much space. In one hand, he held a traveller's trunk; in the other, a bowl of soup. "Do you mind if I take this chair? All the others are full."

"Oh, certainly take it," Luna said. "I don't mind at all."

"Thank you." The man pulled the extra chair away from Luna's table and sat instead against the wall. Lacking a table of his own, he sat his trunk in his lap. and his bowl of soup on top of that.

"You can use the table as well," Luna said, a bit concerned for the man.

"Oh," the man began to stammer. "Oh, I wouldn't want to im-" He paused, seeming to look at her more closely. "I'm sorry, are you alright?"

Luna was a bit surprised; she hadn't thought that there was anything visibly not-alright about her. "I'm fine. Why do you ask?"

"Sorry, it's just that you look as if you've had a trying day, and you're using your school robes as a baby holster." Whilst still looking hesitant, a look of deep concern had entered the man's eyes: a look that reminded Luna very much of Mr. the Doctor and that made her feel suddenly quite young. "Do you need help?" the man asked gently. "My name is Newt. Newt Scamander."

...

"So what is it that you're looking for, Mr. Lupin?" Riddle asked as they wove carefully through the shop's narrow aisles.

Ten's brow was furrowed as he alternated between glancing at the shop's contents and observing Tom. "That depends," he answered mildly. "What do you recommend, Riddle, for a man on a budget?"

" _That_ depends," Riddle responded evenly, "on your intentions."

The air felt heavy with subtext; they could all feel it as Riddle's pace slowed gradually more and more until they were all standing still in a corner of the shop. Ten continued to observe Riddle, and Martha stood uncomfortably by, and Eleven was surely somewhere, doing something, but nobody could see him. Riddle, meanwhile, stood with all the confidence of a man brimming with power and understanding.

"Intention is such a fickle thing," Ten said. "Don't you agree?"

"I'm sure it can be," Riddle said. "If you lack focus. But then, I imagine one loses all _sorts_ of things when one lacks focus." Then he grinned a young man's grin, but there was something in his eyes, something _too_ deep, almost hollow.

Ten raised his head slightly. "And where do lost things go?"

"To someone more deserving," Riddle said. "Someone with the power to keep what is theirs."

"You recognize this face, don't you," Ten surmised while subtly maneuvering Martha behind him.

"I don't, but _she_ does." Riddle held out his hand, and in it appeared a ball of golden energy; his eyes started to glow with golden light.

Ten clenched his teeth, fury changing his entire posture. "That's distilled time energy, extracted from the TARDIS's soul. He's able to interact with it."

"Very good, Doctor." Riddle wiggled his fingers, and the golden energy squirmed between them. "I have your negligence to thank."

"Where's Luna Lovegood, Tom?" Ten asked.

"You know that the 'where' doesn't matter, Doctor," Riddle said pompously. "But I will answer you. 'Where' is she? Wherever I am. 'When' is she? She is always." Then he grinned again, as if he thought himself terribly clever.

"What have you done?" Ten demanded.

"Thus far? Not nearly enough." And then he thrusted his hand forward, and the golden energy surged and smacked into Ten's chest, and then Ten vanished.

Martha stumbled back. "What...What did you do? Where is he?" she asked.

Riddle's smile was gone. He looked her over as though curious. "Hmm." Suddenly, he whipped out his wand and fired it, not forward at Martha, but sideways, and a red beam of light collided with something invisible, and Eleven fell to the floor, the cloak bundled at his ankles. "I do love it when the TARDIS sees things that I don't," Riddle murmured before firing another blast of golden time energy at the fallen Eleventh Doctor.

Martha turned and tried to run, but a beam of light from Riddle's wand hit the small of her back, and suddenly she was bound with ropes from shoulder to foot. She hit the floor with a dull thud, and the wind was knocked out of her.

At a leisurely pace, Riddle walked around to her head and then sat down beside it. "You have a lot of names, don't you, Madame Edgecomb?" he commented. "From your handwriting, I would have thought your name was Penelope."

Martha reeled. "What do you-?"

"I saw your signature in the visitors' log. The penmanship matches exactly." Riddle's tone was sharp, impatient, but then it lightened: "But then, the TARDIS has another name for you. Doctor Jones? Martha Jones?"

Martha did not answer. Riddle's hand played with the golden energy in front of her face for a while in silence.

"You wrote in my diary," Riddle finally said, "about Luna. That diary never belonged to you. It was a gift to her." The golden energy went away, but he kept his wand out, tapping it against his shoe in a coolly threatening way.

"Nice of you to give her a Horcrux," Martha said, and as she spoke she remembered her power here; she knew this story, this series, better than any of its occupants. Better than Tom Riddle. She did not know this altered timeline very well, but she knew that the premise had not changed. "I think she would have preferred something less dark. You had to kill someone to make that. Myrtle, right?"

Riddle took a second to adjust to her knowledge of Horcruxes, her knowledge of _him_. He seemed a bit impressed. Then, he replied. "I gave her a unicorn, once," he said. "The 'purest' of creatures, they say. But she didn't like that very much."

"Did you kill it in front of her or something?" Martha asked.

"She _told_ me to kill it," Tom said. "At least, she told me to end its suffering, and that was the only way to do it with time energy keeping it in flux."

"You _tortured a unicorn_ and expected her to like that?"

"I was young. She had said that she wanted to see one, so I gave her what she wanted. I had to search the Forest for it."

"And this was before or after you opened the Chamber of Secrets?"

Tom smirked, again seeming impressed...and pleased. Maybe this was going to keep her alive. "Before. Long before. She cried when I told her about the Chamber, and about that Mudblood girl...What was her name?"

"Myrtle," Martha said forcefully.

Tom chuckled. "Luna cried. She cried for the unicorn, too. The green light looked wonderful in her tears."

Martha took a pause to process and relax. "What relationship...do you think you have with Luna?" she asked. "Are you her friend? If so, you're not a very good one."

"'Relationship'," Tom repeated scornfully. "Listen to yourself, Doctor Jones. You speak the language of the weak. A 'relationship' only binds for as long as both are faithful to it."

"But you've surpassed all of that, because you're the cleverest boy to ever live, right?" Martha exhaled. "You're just so brilliant, you figured out what none of us ever did."

"She can never leave me, now," Tom said evenly. "Even if her heart or her mind start to deceive her, to tell her that she isn't mine, she will never leave me. Your _Doctor_ will leave you one day, Martha Jones. The TARDIS sees it. Do you want to know what she sees?"

Martha swallowed. "You said Luna can never leave you. What do you mean?"

"I mean the two old men who wanted me to have power the least also gave me the most of it," Tom said, "and I'm able to use that power to keep what belongs to me."

"Luna doesn't belong to you," Martha said. "You can't own a person."

"Oh, I don't know Doctor Jones," Tom sighed contentedly, easing his wand closer until it was pressed against her skull. "At this moment, your life and your death are mine to decide. Whether or not you continue existing depends on a single choice: mine. Who would you say you belong to, O Other Friend of Luna's?"

...

"But..." Mr. Scamander's emotions were so high that he started to stammer again. "But how can he...do such a thing? To harm a creature so innocent...and have anything inside him at all?"

Luna shook her head, at a loss. She was crying again, overwhelmed and a bit relieved to find someone with perhaps more compassion for the unicorn than she had.

"Your friend, he..." Mr. Scamander broke off, shook his head. "All the time, I run into people who have no respect or love for the most beautiful of creatures, such disregard..." As if on cue, a tiny bowtruckle crawled out of the collar of Mr. Scamander's waistcoat and climbed up onto his shoulder to pat his face comfortingly.

"He just _kills_ things, and people," Luna went on miserably, "and it has no meaning to him. I can't understand him, and I don't know how to help him."

"And this, this, this..." Mr. Scamander paused, then started again. "This necklace" (He pointed to the time turner.) "is what takes you to him?"

"Yes," Luna agreed. "It won't allow me to be far away from him, and I can't take it off."

"And that..." Mr. Scamander gestured at Tom, who was now sleeping in her arms.

Luna nodded. "I just delivered him and watched his mother die. I'll have to take him back to the orphanage soon; I don't know what happens if I alter something I've seen happen."

"Such an awful future, to become something so..." Mr. Scamander shook his head.

"I wish I could change it," Luna told him. "But I'm not clever enough."

Mr. Scamander frowned slightly. "I suppose...it takes patience more so than understanding. If you're at it for long enough, you can't help but to learn. And until you can solve _this_ ," (He gestured again at the time turner.) "learning is the best you can do. And I'll help in any way that I can."

Luna smiled through the tears. She felt so much _lighter_ , after confiding in Mr. Scamander. There was so much goodness in him, so much care for others, that it was like she was building up an internal defense for what she would have to face soon enough. "Thank you, sir," she said sincerely, "but this problem came from _my_ choices. I'll have to face it now." She stood up from the table. The Leaky Cauldron was significantly emptier than it had been before; they had been here awhile. "I'm going to take him to the orphanage," she said clearly. "Then, I'm going to go...ahead." She laid a deliberate hand on the time turner before turning to leave.


	27. Everyone is Lost

Eleven felt, as the golden energy cocooned him through time and space, that he probably shouldn't be enjoying the ride so much. Certainly, he wasn't pleased that he had been subjected to this treatment in the first place (He was in no way in a "Geronimo"-shouting mood.), but still, he couldn't deny the rush he felt, the soaring feeling in his stomach as he experienced his TARDIS in a completely new way...

The golden energy went away (That is, energy never "goes away", but for all intents and purposes it was no longer with him.), and he was dropped none-too-gracefully to a dusty stone floor in a dark room.

He arrived at the same time as Ten, who at least managed to keep his feet under him.

Both Doctors whipped out their sonics at the same time.

"Some sort of...dungeon?" Ten surmised, examining the door. Wood. And locked.

"There's a precedent for that," Eleven said, turning 360 degrees. The room wasn't enormous, but it was no broom cupboard, either. Were those... _figures_ huddled in the back? People?

"Where's Martha?" Ten asked, still obliviously examining the door.

Eleven, easing warily closer to the figures, replied, "I don't know, but if she didn't arrive with us..."

Ten slammed his fist against the wall.

The figures were now more distinct to Eleven, so he saw one of them startle at the sound. This one was an old man and familiar to him. "Ollivander?"

"Doctor," Ollivander rasped out weakly.

"Ollivander?" Ten's attention was finally drawn to the back of the dungeon-room. "Oh...I think I know where we are. If this is like book seven..."

Eleven didn't answer; he was preoccupied with the other figure, which was sleeping on its side. While the fact that this one was sort of curled in on itself might have been a factor, Eleven felt sure that this figure was shorter than Ollivander was. It seemed to be a woman, with long, dark hair.

"That's not..." Eleven muttered under his breath.

Ten scanned her with his sonic. "Human. Alive. What's the matter? D'you know her?"

Eleven took a moment to answer; his mind was racing. When he did respond, it was with one word. Well, not so much a word, really, as a name: "Clara."

...

When Martha's eyes opened, she was still bound in ropes, but she was could no longer identify her surroundings; all she knew was that it was dark, and that she was lying across a modest sort of bed.

That is, it was dark, except for the wand tip illuminated close to her face.

"Alright," Tom's voice spoke up from the other side of the wand. "Let's make this simple. Tell me how you know Luna."

Martha did not intend to answer, but the answer flew from her lips regardless. "I've never met her; I only read about her in the Harry Potter books by J. K. Rowling. Oh!" she exclaimed once she was done. "I didn't mean...did you give me Veritaserum or something?"

"The Harry Potter books?" Tom repeated, ignoring her question. "Tell me about them."

"They were written in another universe to protect the future of this one. As long as there are people reading them" (By now Martha was struggling with the ropes, trying to break free so that she could cover her own mouth.) "the original future of this universe is secured. A fixed point in time. At least, it would have been. I don't know if it is anymore."

"The future?" There was a very noticeable greed in Tom's voice, now. Martha felt sick. "What is my future?"

 _Please, don't._ "You gain a load of followers; you become a Dark Lord, and no one is brave enough to even say your name except Dumbledore. In a few decades, you find out about a prophecy that a child born at the end of July will defeat you, and you try to kill a baby called Harry Potter because you believe him to be the child of the prophecy, but you fail because his mother sacrifices herself for him, creating a sort of protection and nearly killing you; your Horcruxes save you, until Harry Potter grows up to be the adversary you never wanted. At seventeen, he destroys all of your Horcruxes and you die in the Battle of Hogwarts."

"I die?" Tom repeated, his tone altogether changing; now, he sounded completely cold, like the scales of a snake passing over a stone floor. Martha shivered in place. "Well," he said slowly, "that is not acceptable." There was a pause as he pondered all of this new information, and Martha prayed that he would ponder it for long enough that the Veritaserum would wear off, but about ten seconds later, he said, "But you said the original future of the timeline might not be secure. Why is that?"

"The Doctor altered Luna's path from outside of the story by accident," Martha rambled, now actually hoping that she would vomit just to shut herself up. "Since Luna was inside the story, and because of her mother's genes, she was able to change things from inside. Meeting you in your childhood and being given your diary, for instance; in the original timeline, you gave your diary to Lucius Malfoy, one of your followers, and eventually used it to open the Chamber of Secrets a second time in Harry Potter's second year, Luna's first year. That led to the bit of your soul in the diary being destroyed with a basilisk fang."

"Hm." That was it, only one contemplative syllable, but there was a palpable mania behind it. "So, I have the books to thank for you knowing so much, and I have the Doctor to thank for bringing you to me. That old man always _will_ give me just what I need."

Martha was still panting from all of the words she had just said; every time she had tried to take a breath, more words had just poured out.

"No, don't get tired now," Tom added, jabbing Martha with his wand almost good-naturedly. "We're just warming up."

...

Luna supposed that she might be attracting attention.

She had intercepted a few curious glances from passersby (students _and_ ghosts) who spotted her spying on Tom from behind a long row of suits of armor. Tom was oblivious, though, because Tom was always oblivious, and it wasn't as if Luna wasn't used to attracting curious (at times scornful) glances.

She _had_ to be near Tom, thanks to the time turner, but he didn't have to _know_ that she was near. In fact, it was quite convenient when he didn't, as well as vindictively satisfying, denying him his exactest intention.

At this moment, Tom looked to be about thirteen. He was standing in the entrance to the Hogwarts library, leaning against a wall and reading from a thick, violet book with stars on the spine. Probably Astrology? His expression was one of apparent distaste. Of course, he wouldn't be one to much appreciate the beauty in the way that the stars spoke to each other.

"Ohoho, Tom, my boy!" A somewhat heavyset man had strode up to Tom and greeted him in a booming voice. Luna was impressed, both by the man's enthusiasm and by his mustache. "Studying Astrology, are you?"

"Just a bit, sir." It was almost jarring, how unerringly polite Tom became in that moment. Of course, there was a level of falseness too it, but even so this was an effort that Tom had never seemed to make with, say, Mr. the Doctor. "I like to fit extra studies into my spare time."

"Popular lad like yourself, one would think that you'd be enjoying the lovely weather," the man said, and Luna observed that he seemed an awfully jovial fellow. "But, of course, you never do miss an opportunity to sharpen that mind, do you, Tom?"

"Well, I don't see the use in a dull blade, sir." So charming.

And the man- a professor, probably -seemed delighted. "Very true! At any rate, Tom, I must be going."

"Have a good afternoon, sir."

"And the same to you!"

As the jovial, well-mustached professor strode away, Luna decided to make herself known by approaching Tom. "I think you ended every sentence with 'sir', then."

Tom did a double take upon seeing her. "Where did you...? What are you wearing?"

Luna looked down at herself. Oh, right. "Well, I used my school robes to swaddle you in- I just delivered you, see. And I've been in a cow pasture and the Forbidden Forest- That was your fault -so I'm a bit stained." All she had left were the shirt and leggings that she wore under her school robes. She didn't even have shoes, not that that was saying much at this point.

Tom stared blankly for a moment, then said, "One day I'm going to stop being surprised. Come on," he added impatiently, setting his book aside on a table and leading her by hand through the hallway.

"Where are we going?" Luna asked, not minding being led around until a treacherous, probably-Great-Intelligence-filled part of her mind murmured, _Not another unicorn..._

"To the laundry, to get you some proper clothes," Tom said simply.

Then they rounded a corner and ran almost directly into...

"Professor Dumbledore!" Luna exclaimed. "I didn't know your hair was auburn." (Somehow, it had not occurred to her that his hair hadn't always been white.)

And indeed, they had run into a young(er) Professor Dumbledore. He was looking between her and Tom with curiosity and suspicion in his eyes but serenity in his face overall. "How do you do?" he said to her, smiling. "I'm afraid I'm not sure I know who you are. I've certainly never seen you in my classes."

"She's just visiting, professor," Tom replied before Luna could say anything.

"Indeed?" The curiosity in his eyes deepened profoundly.

Luna scented an issue, actually. "Sir, I think it might be best if you don't question it much. I think we're close to making a paradox."

Dumbledore raised his eyebrows. "I see." The word "paradox" clearly meant something to him. It probably meant a man in a blue box.

"Try not to remember this," Luna suggested. "I'll meet you in a few decades."

"Very well." (Tom was visibly surprised by Dumbledore's concession, but he masked it quickly.) "I suppose we'd best part ways, then. However, I strongly recommend caution...to both of you." And with a stern, gleaming look, Dumbledore departed.

Tom sent Luna an appraising look before they resumed walking. "I really should keep you around more."

"You think so, Thomas?" Luna couldn't find it in herself to point out that this sentiment was her entire problem right now.

"Yes," he answered flatly. "Now, let's get you dressed in something, and..." He paused, seeming to come to a decision. Then, with the speed of a snake lashing out, he grabbed her wand from her and shoved it into his school bag.

"Why did you do that?" Luna asked, trying to reach around Tom for the wand.

He paid her efforts no mind; they didn't even break his stride. "Because I know you won't leave without it, and I need you to stay longer this time."

"You couldn't have asked?" When he didn't reply, Luna continued, "Why do you want me to stay longer?"

Tom pursed his lips, then answered in a sort of candid way, "Because it's almost Christmas, and I'd like to enjoy a Christmas." It was almost irritating when he spoke candidly, because it tended to give her the feeling that he was deceiving her with the truth.

"Okay, Tom," she said. "Alright."

Then he threw open the door to the laundry.

...

"You said she was dead."

"I know."

"Luna said she was dead."

"I know."

Ten gestured at the sleeping woman. "It looks like she's breathing fine."

"I know!" Eleven sighed. "The two possibilities that are worth considering are that either this _is_ the Clara who was Luna Lovegood's mother and everyone was mistaken about her death..."

"Very possible," Ten mused. "Wizards don't investigate anything properly."

"...or that this is a different Clara, that Luna's mother is still very much dead, and this Clara was captured by Voldemort regardless."

"Voldemort?" Ollivander repeated, confused. "Doctor, I haven't heard of a Voldemort; we were put here by Tom Riddle."

"How can there be different Claras?" Ten went on, ignoring Ollivander. "And what would he want with her, either way?"

"Spoilers, and I don't know," Eleven said. "Maybe he wants control of Luna's mother so that he can better control Luna. Like...er, that bit in book seven..."

"Kidnapping Luna to control Xenophilius," Ten rattled off, having a much fresher memory of the series as a whole. "Sure, he might have taken it the other way around, but why kidnap her dead mother instead of her living father? Or both?"

At that moment, the sleeping woman cleared her throat and sat up. "Well, since you two clearly won't be letting me get any sleep..." She trailed off with a sly smile, then stretched. "What's going on? What're you in for?"

"More importantly," Eleven said slowly, "what are you in for?"

" _More_ importantly," Clara digressed, her eyes having landed on Eleven's sonic screwdriver (Not Ten's, which was too small to draw her attention.), "what's that, and can it help us escape?"

"Sonic...No, no it can't," Eleven said, pocketing his screwdriver dismissively. "Listen, I have to know why Tom Riddle brought you here."

"You think I know?" Clara asked. "I just got here, same as you. We both did; tell him, Ollie."

"An hour at most," Ollivander agreed.

"Of course," Ten murmured. "Put us in at about the same time. Why not, when you've got time energy at your fingertips."

"Who are you?" Eleven asked Clara, entirely earnest.

Clara...sighed. "I can't give much of an answer," she said. "I don't know where I am, I don't know how I got here, I don't even know where I was. Ever since that gold light dropped me here, all I can really remember is that my name is Clara: Clara Oswald Lovegood."

"But you're-"

Ten's protests were cut off by the room suddenly being flooded with golden light. As suddenly as it arrived, the light began to recede, and just before it was gone entirely, a new arrival appeared; a young man with a round face and a landing just as clumsy as the one Eleven had experienced.

The boy groaned, massaging his nose, which had bumped against the floor.

"And then there were four," Clara muttered warily. She approached the boy and helped him to his feet. "You alright?"

The boy looked around him, seeming frightened. He was breathing heavily, as if he had been chased down before being sent here. "I'm fine. Where am I?"

"Might be the cellar of Malfoy Manor," Ten said. "Possibly."

"Who are you?" Eleven asked. "Where'd you come from?"

The boy's posture was mostly defensive, but there was a certain boldness to the way he raised his chin as he answered, "I'm Neville. Longbottom. And I think I've just been expelled from Hogwarts."

...

"They had to be Slytherin robes?" Luna asked. She had already dressed in the clothes Tom had given her and was now emerging from the girls' lavatory.

"They were all I could find in your size," Tom answered.

Doubtful, it being the laundry and all. "Is that a lie?"

Tom shrugged unabashedly. "I like the way green looks on you."

Indeed? Luna looked down at herself, inspecting for what difference the color green could be making. "Is it your favorite color?"

Tom rolled his eyes at the question. "No. You're just my favorite person, and I know what colors favor you." Somehow, he made the statement as if he was just correcting her on some trivial academic distinction. He had a way of removing sentiment from sentiment; it was impressive.

"I doubt I'll be able to sleep in the Slytherin dormitory, either way," Luna said.

"Of course not," Tom agreed. "I know a place where you can sleep without being discovered. After dinner. Which you're having with me."

"Fine," Luna conceded, since Tom had sent her a stern look while saying the last part. "But what is the place?"

Tom relaxed his stern gaze and lazily answered, "I've found this room that appears and disappears..."

"Oh, the Come and Go Room," Luna surmised. "You told me about that. Or...you _will_ tell me."

Tom looked a bit disappointed at not getting to reveal his own cleverness, but he swiftly recovered to restate, "But that's after dinner."

"What's so important about dinner, Tom?"

She supposed she had been expecting an evasive answer or a flatly sentimental-but-not-sentimental one, because she was actually surprised when Tom _smiled_. Like the smile of a friend. The sort of smile that she was used to spectating, not receiving. The sort of smile that, even though she could of course still see the wrongness, the sharpness in his eyes, made her consider for a moment that she might just forgive him everything, everything he had ever done, because he was someone who was truly invested in her presence in a positive way. He would never exclude her or forget her. She was his favorite person. But that was just a moment, just a thought. Just a thought.

"I like watching you eat," he admitted simply.


	28. Flux? In MY Timeline? It's More Likely Than You Think!

When Lovegood ate, it was always with a certain brightness in her eyes, a certain alacrity.

She dished odd combinations on the same plate, and Tom had dined with her enough times not to say "Pudding doesn't go with that." By now, he wasn't even moved to; he hadn't been lying when he said he enjoyed watching her eat. Like he was special, his Luna was special.

The other Slytherins were clearly curious, sneaking glances at her in reflective surfaces and all that, but they knew better than to question Tom or Tom's company.

"It's so odd, seeing the Great Hall this way," Luna commented, seemingly oblivious to all of the attention. "In most ways it's the same, but it's so different, too."

They were falling, Tom noticed, into their regular pattern of him observing her observing things. He was certain that he would be keeping her until New Years. After that, she could leave- he was not dependent -but until then...

"Oh, it's Mr. Baron," Luna observed as the Bloody Baron swooped in near the end of the table. "Still dead, then."

"He died ages ago," Tom said.

"And there's Miss Helena," Luna added.

"Who?" Tom followed Luna's gaze and saw... "You mean the Gray Lady?" (Of course Luna would know the ghost woman's real name. Admittedly, Tom had never paid the ghosts much thought. After all, they were dead. They had failed to remain alive, in any real way. What had they to offer him? Hmm...)

"That's what people call her," Luna agreed. "I don't think that's a very nice name, though."

Tom identified what could well be a full conversation if he allowed it to be, and he determined that he was in the mood to allow it to be. "'Gray' is an insult? Clouds are gray. You like clouds, don't you?"

"Yes," Luna mused. "But sometimes when people say something that sounds nice, they don't mean it nicely." There was a speaking-from-experience note in her voice that intrigued Tom. He was reminded of all the times she had casually dropped hints that she was not well-liked in her time. _Well,_ he thought, eyeing the time turner around her neck, _then I rescued her, didn't I?_

And maybe one day she would let slip the names of the people who had bothered her. That would be...satisfying.

"You're looking sort of wolfish, Tom," Luna remarked. "Is something the matter?"

(There was an outbreak of whispering, likely because none of the other Slytherins could imagine being allowed to address such observations or such inquiries to Tom Riddle.)

Himself, Tom was pleased that even his absently leering at her neck wouldn't make his Luna try to misbehave, to self-preserve. She was with him wandless, her life completely and utterly in his hands, and she acted so calm. She had said something on the topic before, he recalled. Something like _I've always known you might kill me, Tom._ Merlin, she was a perfect possession.

On principle, he did not believe in Dumbledore's talk about love as the most powerful magical force in the universe. Not when something like death had such a clear upper hand. And anyway, he, Thomas Riddle, was to be the greatest wizard alive, and he had no need for love in any form or capacity; in fact the very concept repulsed him as something exchanged by people weaker than himself. Something that kept people in flux and made them vulnerable. Still, he was self-aware enough to know that whatever he did feel for Luna, and he wasn't sure even what it was, it was an intoxicating force. That was why he had quickly figured out that _he,_ not the Doctor, needed to be in control of his doses of her.

"Nothing," he replied. "Are you done eating?"

"Nearly."

"Hurry up."

Luna scooped up most of the remaining food and popped it into her mouth. "You don't eat much," she noted. "Is it hard for you to get used to the larger portions?"

(More whispers, even more surprised.)

Tom rolled his eyes. "If you're talking, there's room for more food."

"You're a bit of a bully." She ate the rest.

"Come on."

Luna followed Tom, keeping her eyes moving and idly running her hands over most every surface they passed by. It passed as her normal fanciful disposition, but truthfully she was very focused. It had occurred to her on the walk to the Great Hall that, with Mr. the Doctor having no way of knowing where she was, her only imminently-reliable ally was...herself. And if that was the case, given how criss-crossy her path through Time had been even so far, she ought to be checking for messages from herself.

She tried to think of where she might decide to leave a message so that only she could find it; at the least, if she decided that now, her future self would remember it.

"Will you pay attention?" Tom said scathingly.

Luna blinked. "Have you been talking?"

Tom didn't answer, but he had a surly look in place. Luna was sure that he couldn't have been saying anything, though; she would have noticed him talking to her, wouldn't she have?

Unless the wrackspurts were...

Oh!

"My Spectrespecs," Luna murmured aloud, and Tom turned to her curiously as she patted herself down, looking for her special glasses...but these weren't her robes. And even if they were, she didn't think her robes had the Spectrespecs in them anymore; either they had fallen out at some point in her adventure, or Older Tom had confiscated them when he kidnapped her.

"Your what?" Tom asked, amused.

"They help me see the wrackspurts," she explained, ceasing her search with a bit of a pout. They could help her see other invisible things, too. With the right spell, she could write near-anything, on the walls or anywhere, invisibly, and see the message through the 'specs...But she didn't have the 'specs.

"Wrackspurts; I actually know that one," Tom chuckled.

Luna watched him chuckle. Even when he was chuckling, he didn't seem jolly or personable so much as suavely confident. It made her remember, again, that he was Voldemort.

They waited a second for the stairs to move into place, then continued up. They certainly weren't going to the Slytherin common room.

"Where to, Tom?"

"The Come-And-Go Room. Where else?"

"Hmm." Fair enough. As long as it wasn't the forest. As long as there wasn't another unicorn. She almost cried again just remembering; she really needed to stop thinking about it.

She didn't get to hear what Tom said to the door to make it appear, but when they went through it, they entered what could conservatively be referred to as a bedroom but which quite nearly resembled a loft, with cozy areas for sleeping and for sitting, and a shelf of books that all looked enticingly peculiar, and art supplies on a rack near the far wall. She wondered if another Her had been here already; there were a few drawings already on the wall.

In a corner near that was what seemed to be a work station, with covered jars of potion ingredients, dark-looking scrolls, and glowing oddities. Instinct told her that was for Tom.

On a small table beside the door were a pair of Spectrespecs and a colorfully-striped wristwatch. The table disappeared as soon as Luna had (gratefully) put on both, and she welcomed the slight distortion of color and image that came with wearing her 'specs.

"What do you think?" Tom asked, in the perfunctory tone of someone sure that the response would be positive. "Nice enough?" Then he noticed her eye gear. "Merlin. Are those the Spectrespecs?"

She didn't answer; on the bit of wall over his shoulder was an invisible message, scrawled in what looked like a more mature version of her own handwriting: _"Save the Marauders! Lily Evans and James Potter! Harry Potter's parents! In danger; save them ASAP!"_ And slightly below it, in a slightly different version of her handwriting: _"P.S.: Will take awhile."_

...

"...and she probably would have had to bear Morfin's child, but she ran away when her brother and father were sent to Askaban, and she gave your father a love potion which loads of fans of the series theorize caused you to be this messed up." Martha panted, finally done.

"But she was one of Slytherin's heirs; she must have been powerful," Tom insisted.

"Pretty sure she was just devastatingly inbred. Please can we stop?" Tom had spent a lot of time asking about his mother. It was almost cute, how desperate he seemed to know about her. But hearing that she had been what he would call "weak" and "pathetic" had drastically corroded his mood. Or maybe it was the fact that the grandfather who gave him his middle name was such a deeply undignified wretch. Or maybe it was any number of things about his gross, depressing backstory, but the fact of the matter was that he had gone from indifferent to desperate to surly, and Martha was developing a throbbing headache.

"No. I didn't brew a new batch just for you to give out on me. Tell me about Dumbledore again."

"I already told you everything that was in the books and everything the author said about him outside the books. That's all I know. You want me to say it all again?"

"Maybe later. Tell me about Harry Potter, then. In fact, tell me about his parents; I can nip this in the bud early."

"That's not very sporting," Matha said, dread pooling in her already-nauseous stomach as she actively forced these words out instead of the answer Tom was demanding.

"Tell me."

...

"Alright. Let's try to get through this without spoilers," Eleven said.

Clara raised a hand. "What are spoilers?"

Ten gestured between both of himself. "We're from the future. Also from a different universe. We have very specific insights into your universe, but those insights are becoming a bit less relevant because Chinny here-"

"Thin ice," Eleven muttered.

"-decided to tamper with Luna Lovegood's childhood."

"Hang on," Clara said, her eyes hardening. "What do you mean?"

"She was in danger, so I took her on a ride in my time machine," Eleven explained. "No one got hurt, almost mostly, and she's perfectly sa-...Actually, nevermind."

"You were going to say 'safe' and then you stopped yourself," Clara noted, narrowing her eyes dangerously. "What happened to my child?"

"She's fine. She just might have...So you know Tom Riddle?"

" _Yes._ "

"Well, in a way that was completely not my fault, she ended up shot back in time. Weeping Angels, unnecessary to explain. She met him as a child, and now they're sort of friends, except instead of happiness and lifelong memories, there's kidnapping across time and space. We were _trying_ to get her back, but then he sent us here, and the door is locked and wooden, and the sonic doesn't do wood."

"That's probably also why you're here," Ten added. He was pacing, _fast_. "Because of Luna. Not sure what specifically his plan is; he's got us, sure, because we're probably the biggest threat to his plan, 'cept Albus, but he can't get Albus, because Albus is brilliant and has magic. He's got Ollivander; not sure why, but there could be loads of reasons."

"In the books, it was because of, er, the wand...thing...with Harry," Eleven interjected. "And the Elder Wand, also."

"Sure," Ten carried on, and the two of them- well, the two of _him_ -had reached a sort of rhythm where no one else could get a word in. "He's got Luna's mum, sure: control Luna, probably. Neville...They were friends in the books, more than friends in the eighth film..."

"Books, films!" Clara shouted impatiently. She stalked up to Eleven. " _You_ are lucky I don't have my wand," she said, then stalked up to Ten: "And _you_ had better figure out a way out of here so I can save my child."

"'Figure out a'...What exactly do you think I'm doing?" Ten asked incredulously. "Do you think I'm just pacing for the air flow?"

"He's got Martha," Eleven said gravely. "But he didn't send her here."

"Martha's clever," Ten continued the thought. "She'd..." He went still. "Oh, no...She'd talk to him, to keep from being killed. She knows enough about the books; it wouldn't be difficult for him to figure out-"

"-that she knows more than she should," Eleven continued _his_ thought. "He'd know she can be a resource, and she's no way to defend herself. He could be interrogating her right now. Well not right now, but back then. He could be interrogating her _back then_."

"Excuse me," Neville finally managed to interject. "I don't...really understand. You know Luna?"

Both Doctors turned to him, and he looked wary at their combined attention and strangeness.

"The question is, do _you?_ And how well? And from what?" Eleven asked.

"Right. Because we only know how the story was supposed to go, not how it went," Ten said. "We need all three of you to state what you remember about your last few years before being captured."

"Preferably as it pertains to Voldemort and/or Luna Lovegood," Eleven said.

"Right," Ten agreed.

"Who is 'Voldemort'?" Ollivander asked. "You keep saying that name."

"Right," Ten repeated, this time with a grimace. "We meant 'Tom Riddle'. In the original timeline, he gave himself a wonky nickname. Not sad to see it go, to be honest."

"I am," Eleven argued. "Now we've got to call him 'Tom'; where's the fantasy there?"

"Focus," Clara suggested.

"Right," Ten said for the third time. "Neville, you're up first."

Neville looked as if he would have preferred to actually _take on_ Tom Riddle if it meant he wouldn't have to brave public speaking, but he began regardless, "I...Well, I've been at _Hogwarts_ for the last few years."

"And, anything exciting happen there? Who were your professors?" Eleven asked.

"Is Dumbledore still Headmaster?" Ten asked.

"'Course," Neville said, frowning a bit. "No one could replace Dumbledore."

"Book five says hi," Ten said under his breath.

"And book seven," Eleven agreed just as quietly before raising his voice again: "And...?"

"Professors...Er, McGonagall, Sprout, Flitwick..." (He went on to list the normal lot for a while.) "The, er, DADA professor changes every year..."

"Which means the curse is still in place, which means Tom still asked for the job," Ten noted.

"But that was to hide the diadem, wasn't it?" Eleven said.

"Well, who says he didn't need to hide the diadem again this time?"

"Or something of equal importance; we mustn't make assumptions. Neville, who were the Defense professors you've had, in order, and what happened to them?" Eleven asked.

"Quirrel, he, er...I think he was bitten by a snake. Lockhart was next, but then it came out that he...what?" Neville broke off when he saw the time lords exchanging uneasy looks.

"Nothing. Keep going," Eleven said lowly.

"Lockhart, er...It came out that he was obliviating people, so he was removed. After that..." Neville frowned suddenly. "Er...Sorry, I just...I don't know why, but my memories are sort of..." He went red from embarrassment. "I'm not sure why...I can't remember..."

"So some parts of the timeline might be in flux," Eleven murmured. "And others have already changed. The climaxes of the first two books, undone."

"Not very stable," Ten said. "Not at all. It means that someone is still making changes."

...

Luna deliberated on how to best follow Future Luna's instructions. Saving Harry Potter's parents...She would have to do that rather soon; she didn't know that she would always have the chance. And she knew roughly what time period it would be, and she could make it there through trial and error at the very least.

_Yes. I can do that, I think._

She would have to wait until Tom had left her for the night.

"What are you doing?" she asked him, wandering the immediate surroundings within a three-meter radius of Tom's bizarre work station.

"Making a surprise for Christmas."

"It's not going to be like the u-"

"No, it's not like the unicorn. You ask that every time."

Luna frowned, finding this comment unfair. "I've only asked it once so far. It's not my fault Future Me asked it, too."

"Of course it's your fault," Tom argued. "What sort of thing is that to say?"

"Hmm." Luna picked up a jar that, unlike most of the others on the desk, was opaque.

"Careful," Tom said, sounding amused.

Luna opened the jar and was nearly blinded by a startling light emanating from within the container until she regained the presence of mind to close it.

Tom laughed at her. "You look so stunned."

"What was that?" Luna asked, holding the closed jar up and examining it from many angles.

"Never you mind." Tom rose from his seat, took the jar from her, and placed it back on the desk. A second later, the entire work station vanished. "Good night," he said, making for the door.

"Good night," Luna replied, though still displeased by not receiving an answer about the light in the jar. "Don't let the nargles bite." She was surprised to hear Tom recite the words along with her, then flash her a smug grin before exiting the Come-and-Go Room. It was concerning how much he knew of her by now.

But never mind that.

Luna started spinning the time turner.

...

"Insteresting," Tom said.

Martha's breathing was shaky, and there was a tear making progress down her cheek.

"Enough on the Potters," he decided, turning a page in his notebook. "Tell me about Luna's fate, in the books. Did we ever meet?"

"Not explicitly, I don't think." Martha's tone had become flat, resigned. She didn't fight the potion anymore. "She fought with Death Eaters in her fourth year, and you turned up at the fight, but there's never a mention of you being in the same area. In her sixth year, she gets captured by Death Eaters and locked up in Malfoy Manor, in the cellar, because her father's magazine" (She managed to take a breath; she was getting better at that, at least.) "was printing things your lot didn't like."

"His magazine. That was...?"

"The Quibbler. Probably doesn't exist yet."

"Maybe not, but I can't wait." Malevolent amusement lined his calm words. "And what happens in the cellar?"

"Don't know really anything that happens before Harry helps her escape. I know Ollivander was locked up with her, and she made him feel better about being a prisoner."

"She does have that skill, yes," Tom murmured, thinking back to his orphanage days. Then it occurred to him: Locking up Ollivander might actually be a good idea. Then _he_ , Tom, would decide who received good wands. Appealing concept. "And after that?"

"She helps fight in the Battle of Hogwarts, where you're _defeated_." Bringing that up as often as possible was her only way of rebelling. "She helps take on Bellatrix for a bit, I think. Then Bellatrix is killed by Mrs. Weasley."

"And after that?"

"In the books she isn't really mentioned. The author says she has a family with Rolf Scamander. In the movies, she might have a thing with Neville Longbottom."

Tom felt his eyes heat up as if he had stuck his head into an oven. From Martha's recoil, he gathered that they must have turned red. He wasn't always in control of that. "Say those names again for me?" he asked levelly.

...

The Luna who was waiting for Tom when he returned to the Come-And-Go Room the following morning was probably about fourteen- his own age -dressed in Ravenclaw Robes in her own size and, when he entered, sketching a TARDIS on the wall in charcoal.

This wasn't the first time he had had Luna change age on him mid-visit. "Long night?" he asked with a smirk.

"A bit, yes," she answered, fluttering her fingers at him (whose tips were dark-grayish from the charcoal). "Had an errand to run." He watched her wipe her hands off on a rag that was draped over her lap. Watched, silently, because there was a look on her face as if she wanted to say something but had forgotten what it was. At last, her eyes brightened and she chimed, "You've had my wand for a few years, now. Can I have it back?"


End file.
